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ABNOEMAL PSYCHOLOGY 









ABNOEMAL PSTCHOLOfiY 


BY 


ISADOR H.' CORIAT, M.D. 

First Assistant Visiting Physician for Diseases of the Nervous System, 
Boston City Hospital. Instructor in Neurology, Tufts 
College Medical School 



NEW YORK 

MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 

1921 












Copyright, 1910, 1914, by 
MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
New York 

All Rights Reserved 


Fifth Printing, April, 1917 
Sixth Printing, January, 1931 


c\ -visa 

O 



DR. MORTON PRINCE 

IN APPRECIATION OF HIS PIONEER WORK 
IN ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 



Itk. 



CONTENTS 


PART I 

THE EXPLORATION OF THE 
SUBCONSCIOUS 

CHAPTER PAGE 

1. The Subconscious.3 

1. The Subconscious Defined . . 3 

2. The Modern Theories of the Sub¬ 

conscious .9 

3. The Subconscious Mechanism in 

Everyday Life ... .22 

4. How the Subconscious Becomes 

Diseased.32 

II. Automatic Writing AND Crystal Gazing 39 

III. Testing the Emotions .... 54 

IV. Analyzing the Emotions ... 81 

V. Sleep . 103 

VI. Dreams .138 

VII. Freud’s Theory of Dreams . . . 161 

VIII. Hypnosis .189 

IX. Analysis of the Mental Life . .211 


Psycho-Analysis of a Case of Hys¬ 
teria 228 


IX 





CONTENTS 


PART II 

THE DISEASES OF THE 
SUBCONSCIOUS 


CHAPTER 

I. 

Losses of Memoey .... 

• 

PAGE 

241 

II. 

The Restoration of Lost Memories 

[• 

259 

HI. 

Illusions of Memory 

• 

272 

IV. 

The Splitting of a Personality . 

• 

280 

V. 

Hysteria. 

[• 

297 

VI. 

PSYCHASTHENIA .... 

• 

339 

VH. 

Neurasthenia. 

• 

364 

VHI. 

Psycho-Epileptic Attacks 

• 

384 

IX. 

Colored Hearing .... 

• 

392 

X. 

The Prevention of the Neuroses 

1 

• 

413 


Index . 

• 

425 



PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION 


It is extremely gratifying to the author that a second 
edition of this book should be called for within the space 
of three years. During this period abnormal psy¬ 
chology has made steady and important advances, par¬ 
ticularly in the field of psycho-analysis with its various 
applications to the neuroses, wit, literature, mythology, 
and folk lore. For reasons of space, however, and be¬ 
cause such material does not really lend itself to popu¬ 
lar presentation, the important subject of psycho¬ 
analysis has been presented only in its general out¬ 
lines. Several new chapters have been added, one on 
Freud’s theory of dreams, one on the prevention of the 
neuroses, .and one on colored hearing. This latter 
chapter has been reprinted, with a few modifications, 
from my contributions on colored hearing to the Jour¬ 
nal of Abnormal Psychology. In addition, the chapter 
on the Subconscious has been rewritten, to conform 
with the most recent psycho-analytic conceptions. I 
have also added my researches on the nature and evolu¬ 
tion of sleep and hypnosis. A large number of other 
important additions and changes have been made, to 
bring the book in line with the latest advances in ab¬ 
normal psychology. 

ISADOR H. CORIAT. 

Boston^ November, 1913. 

416 Marlborough St. 



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INTRODUCTION 


Abnormal psychology, or the study of ab¬ 
normal mental phenomena, is one of the late 
developments of scientific medicine. It is not 
a mere fad, as some of its critics would attempt 
to make us believe, neither has it sprung up 
like a mushroom, within a single night. Ab¬ 
normal psychology is the outcome of the work 
of small groups of investigators in France, 
Germany, and America, within the last twenty- 
five years. Beginning with a study of the 
phenomena of hypnosis, these researches gradu¬ 
ally developed into a series of brilliant psycho¬ 
logical discoveries. The most important of 
these is the principle of dissociation or of 
splitting of the mind. In a general way we 
speak of these matters as the theory of the 
subconscious. This theory has not only thrown 
an immense amount of light on the nature of 
human personality, but other peculiar phenom¬ 
ena, such as losses of memory or amnesia, 
automatic writing, crystal gazing, and such dis¬ 
eases as neurasthenia, hysteria, psychasthenia, 
have been stripped of the mystery which sur- 


XI 


INTRODUCTION 


• • 

XU 

rounded them for centuries. These phenomena, 
even more than the modern investigations on 
the ultimate nature of matter, form the “ fairy¬ 
land of science.’^ Apart from any scientific 
knowledge, the general reader has a certain 
interest in these problems, either from curiosity 
or the light they shed upon human personality 
or perhaps from the mystery which seems to 
surround them. 

Abnormal psychology has also its practical 
aspects. Its discoveries have made possible the 
psychic treatment of certain functional nervous 
disorders. Technically, this is known as psycho¬ 
therapeutics. The interpretation of these func¬ 
tional states is based on the principle of the 
dissociation of consciousness. But psychothera¬ 
peutics would be in a very chaotic condition and 
barren of results, were it not for abnormal 
psychology, for a scientific psychotherapeutics 
must be based upon a sound psychopathology. 

Most of the investigations on abnormal 
psychology are widely scattered in medical pub¬ 
lications and in psychological journals of a 
highly specialized character, thereby making 
these researches almost inaccessible to the gen¬ 
eral reader. There has been no attempt, so far 
as known, to bring all this material together 
within the compass of a single book. It is 
with this object in view that the present volume 


INTRODUCTION 


Xlll 


was written. In it an attempt will be made, not 
only to summarize the principal work in this 
fascinating field, but also some personal ob¬ 
servations and experiments will be added. 

Most of the problems of abnormal psychology 
centre around the modern theory of the sub¬ 
conscious. While there is no consensus of 
opinion as to the exact interpretation of these 
subconscious phenomena, yet it is admitted by 
all psychologists that subconscious or disso¬ 
ciated mental states exist. Whether these states 
depend upon psychological or physiological ac¬ 
tivities, or whether they are normal or abnormal 
conditions, seems to be the chief ground of con¬ 
tention. It seems that subconscious manifesta¬ 
tions present all grades of complexity, from the 
absent-mindedness of everyday life to the phe¬ 
nomena of hysteria and multiple personality. 
Before we can comprehend the more compli¬ 
cated aspects of subconscious mental states we 
must have a clear understanding of their simpler 
manifestations. The evidence seems to show 
that subconscious mental states are not always 
proofs of disease, but just where the physio¬ 
logical ends and where the pathological begins, 
is difficult to determine. No hard and fast 
line can be drawn, there is a decided overlap¬ 
ping, an almost imperceptible shading of one 
into the other. For in psychology as in pathol- 


XIV 


INTRODUCTION 


ogy, the normal explains the diseased, and the 
diseased throws light on the normal. Absent- 
mindedness, the forgetting of familiar names, 
purposeless or thoughtless actions, all these may 
be designated as normal states of mental dis¬ 
sociation, because they occur in everyday life. 
On the other hand, such manifestations as 
hysteria or multiple personality or losses 
of memory are distinctly pathological con¬ 
ditions. 

Therefore, in order that clearness may not be 
sacrificed, we must pass by slow gradations from 
the simplest to the most complex forms of sub¬ 
conscious mental states. We must understand 
the normal before we can hope to grasp the 
abnormal. Without adopting this method, we 
would become lost in a maze of psychological 
theories. After we have learned, so to speak, 
the grammar of abnormal psychology, by this 
meaning the psychopathology of everyday life, 
we are then in a position to understand the 
work on hysteria, neurasthenia, amnesia, mul¬ 
tiple personality, etc. These subjects will be 
discussed from the standpoint of dissociated 
mental states, without entering into the field 
of psychical research. We shall see that these 
phenomena can be explained by purely psycho¬ 
logical and physiological mechanisms based on 
well-recognized laws of body and mind, and 


INTRODUCTION 


XV 


that there is no need of supernormal interpreta¬ 
tions. 

This volume is, therefore, divided into two 
parts, which are indicated by the titles “ The 
Exploration of the Subconscious ” and the 
“ Diseases of the Subconscious.” In the first 
section, after a discussion of subconscious phe¬ 
nomena in general, we will pass to the methods 
of analyzing these phenomena and making them 
objective facts. The second section will be 
devoted to a study of certain functional dis¬ 
turbances which, either in whole or in part, are 
due to perversions of subconscious mental states. 

In general what can psychotherapy, in its 
purely practicable aspects learn from these com¬ 
plex theories ? What can psychotherapy do 
and how does it do it? That the principles are 
eminently practicable is shown by the results 
of psychotherapy. The modern concepts of the 
principles of mental dissociation and mental 
synthesis, of subconscious and unconscious men¬ 
tal states were the forces which were responsible 
for the birth of this new psychology in its prac¬ 
ticable application to medicine. Popular ideas 
on suggestion are so loose and vague that a 
restatement of the scientific principles upon 
which suggestion is based may have a certain 
value. It seems to be the general idea that 
suggestion is a kind of magic wand in the hand 


XVI 


INTRODUCTION 


of the physician, and that the waving of this 
wand can make diseases appear or disappear in 
the same manner that a rabbit appears to sud¬ 
denly pop out of the magician’s silk hat. So 
suggestion has come to have a certain occult or 
mystical meaning, in the same way that the term 
subconscious has been popularly interpreted as a 
supernatural state of mind. We hope to show 
that nothing of this sort is possible and that 
psychotherapy cannot change one iota of the 
laws of the mechanism of consciousness. Func¬ 
tional neuroses do not get well by a presto 
change method. Their treatment requires long 
study, numerous examinations, a knowledge of 
the theoretical and practical principles of ab¬ 
normal psychology and of all the diagnostic 
methods of modern medicine. 


Boston, January, 1910. 


PART I 


THE EXPLORATION OF THE 
SUBCONSCIOUS 



ABNORMAL PSYCHOLOGY 

CHAPTER I 

THE SUBCONSCIOUS 
1. The Subconscious Defined 

The term “ subconscious,” or as it is some¬ 
times called “ Unconscious,” has been distorted 
by popular usage to mean almost anything 
beyond the pale of ordinary experience. It is 
applied in these pages only to certain well- 
attested psychological phenomena, phenomena 
which present themselves in different ways 
varying according to the standpoint or experi¬ 
ence of the observer. The student of mental 
disorders interprets the subconscious in terms 
of derangement of certain functions of the 
nervous system; to one interested in the func¬ 
tions themselves, the subconscious means an 
inability to reproduce, at will and without the 
aid of a special technique, the images of past 
experiences; the psychologist regards the sub¬ 
conscious as an independent consciousness, co¬ 
existent with the healthy consciousness but 
detached from it. 


8 


4 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

Let it be stated at the beginning, however, 
that while this detached portion of conscious¬ 
ness is able to do any mental task, it cannot, 
however, perform so-called supernatural feats, 
at least so far as any reliable scientific evidence 
has shown. If the mind of an individual, suf¬ 
fering from hysteria, for example, is possessed 
by a system of independent, subconscious ideas, 
(or complexes as they are technically termed) 
of which the individual’s personality is ignorant 
or unaware and yet that personality is under 
the control of these complexes, the term disso¬ 
ciation is applied to this group of independent, 
subconscious ideas. Dissociation therefore, is a 
pathological phenomenon, originating, as will 
be later demonstrated, from the resistance built 
up by mental repression or from conscious or 
unconscious mental conflicts. 

Since these states of mental dissociation are 
clinical phenomena of the nervous system, we 
will first very briefly direct our attention to a 
few of these. The nervous system is the do¬ 
main of consciousness, associative memory, and 
reflex action. The chief functional character¬ 
istics of the nervous system are—the storing up 
of impressions and their reproduction in the 
order in which they are stored up, reflex action, 
and conduction. The first of these functions, 
the storing up of impressions, is the most im- 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


5 


portant, as it probably forms the physical basis 
of memory. However, the exact correlation of 
mental processes with physical changes in the 
brain is impossible. As Tyndall says, “ The 
passage from physics to the phenomena of con¬ 
sciousness is unthinkable.’’ Bergson has more 
recently attempted to correlate brain states 
with memory, but as with all attempts in this 
direction, only with indifferent success. He 
states, for instance,^ “ The cerebral mechan¬ 
ism does in some sort condition memories but 
it is in no way sufficient to ensure their sur¬ 
vival.” That a close relationship between brain 
and memory exists, however, is shown by certain 
clinical phenomena which follow a localized de¬ 
struction of brain tissue through hemorrhage or 
tumors. As examples of this condition may be 
mentioned the loss of motor memories which 
cause motor apraxia and therefore disorders of 
voluntary acts and movements, or of auditory 
or visual memories, which produce the various 
types of speech-disorder known as aphasia. 
We may state in general, however, although this 
statement will not bear rigid critical analysis, 
that the brain probably stores up impressions 
in the manner that the phonograph cylinder 
stores up sound vibrations and reproduces these 
as sounds. Or the analogy might be carried 


* “ Matter and Memory,” p. 84. 


6 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

a little further, by referring to one of the 
phenomena of living nerve tissue. The retina 
of the eye stores up ether vibrations, and their 
persistence in the retinal nerve elements forms 
what is known in physiology as “ after images.” 
For instance, if one looks very intently at a 
bright light for a second or two and then closes 
the eyes, one will still see the image of that 
light for a brief period of time. The impres¬ 
sion of light has outlasted the objective stim¬ 
ulus which caused it. Probably phenomena of 
a like nature take place in the brain, but of this 
we cannot be certain. No one has yet shown 
absolutely how physical changes in the nerve 
cells can cause mental phenomena, or vice versa, 
how mental phenomena can cause physical 
changes excepting perhaps in the domain of 
the physiological accompaniments of the emo¬ 
tions. Our knowledge is limited to the state¬ 
ment that the brain is the organ of conscious¬ 
ness, but exactly how brain activity produces 
consciousness is a riddle which probably will 
never be solved. 

Consciousness is a feature of all brain activity, 
but whether it is a result of this activity, or 
whether it runs parallel to it, opens up the 
enormous field of the interaction of mind on 
body and body on mind, and has given rise to 
many philosophical speculations. If we assume 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


7 


that it is probably the action of the molecules 
within the nerve cell which produces conscious¬ 
ness, we must also assume that what comes to 
me as consciousness would be visible to an 
outsider merely as molecular activity. Even in 
the deepest hypnotic and somnambulistic states, 
consciousness is very active, but it is probably 
absent or reduced to a very low level in sleep 
and certainly completely absent in deep chloro¬ 
form or ether anesthesia, although even in the 
latter state, as recent investigations have shown, 
afferent impulses, such as pain, may be trans¬ 
mitted by the sensory nerves from the periphery 
to the brain. Strong says,^ “ The doctrine 
thus reached is variously expressed by saying 
that brain action ‘ causes,’ ‘ generates,’ ‘ manu¬ 
factures,’ or ‘ calls into existence ’ states of 
consciousness; that consciousness is dependent 
on the brain.” This doctrine of the causal rela¬ 
tion between mind and brain activity is called 
the theory of automatism. It is directly op¬ 
posed to what is known as parallelism, which 
states that brain activity and mind run side by 
side—in other words, are simultaneous events. 

The storing up of objective experiences is 
principally through the complex organs of sen¬ 
sation,—the eye,- the ear, and the skin. These 
experiences are stored up in the nerve cells of 

^ C. A. Strong; “ Why the Mind Has a Body.” 



8 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

the brain, their traces forming what are known 
as physiological dispositions or complexes. The 
revival of these stored-up experiences is called 
memory; but only those experiences are capable 
of revival which have produced sufficient traces. 
Memory may preserve not only what is worth 
having, but also what is not worth having, for 
instance, in the various psycho-neurotic dis¬ 
turbances. Usually these experiences are 
stored up in the order in which they are re¬ 
ceived, and the revival of one portion of the 
experience tends to revive the others which are 
connected with it. This forms the physiological 
basis of association. Of conscious experiences 
or rather of experiences which remain in con¬ 
sciousness we are usually aware, and we can 
revive and suppress them at will. In other 
words, they lack automatism and independent 
activity. When an experience is stored up, 
but cannot be voluntarily reproduced, we speak 
of it as dissociated or subconscious. A syn¬ 
thesis cannot be formed except through special 
devices. A mental dissociation is, therefore, 
directly opposite to a mental synthesis. By the 
former, we mean that experiences are detached 
or split off—by the latter, that these split off 
experiences are made whole again. 

In normal mental life, except under special 
and very transitory conditions, stored-up ex- 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


9 


periences do not tend to become split off from 
consciousness. When an experience or complex 
has become dissociated, it tends to act automati¬ 
cally, and cannot be controlled by the will. 
This is well seen in those abnormal mental 
states which are termed obsessions and in some 
forms of automatic writing. In certain hys¬ 
terical states, in functional losses of memory, 
or in multiple personality, the subject is not 
aware of the dissociated experiences. The chief 
factors in dissociation, whether simple or com¬ 
plex, seem to be automatism, independent activ¬ 
ity, lack of awareness, and the inability to re¬ 
produce conserved experiences. By what is 
known as “ tapping ” the subconscious, as in 
hypnosis and in states of abstraction, in crystal 
gazing or automatic writing or through various 
other devices, we can bring these dissociated 
activities into full consciousness, or in psycho¬ 
logical terms, produce a synthesis. 


2. The Modern Theories of the Subconscious 

We are now prepared, after this brief intro¬ 
duction, to discuss the principal dominant the¬ 
ories of the subconscious. The recognition of 
the subconscious (or unconscious) mental life, 
constitutes the basis of modern psychopathology 
and psycho-analysis. However, for some psy- 


10 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


chologists, particularly those who have not had 
experience in investigating abnormal mental 
phenomena, everything psychic is a priori con¬ 
scious and hence for them an unconscious men¬ 
tal process is an absurdity and a contradiction 
of terms. Consciousness, however, is not the 
indispensable characteristic of mental life, for 
psycho-analysis has shown, particularly in the 
analysis of dreams and the study of hysterical 
patients, that subconscious mental process, even 
of a most complex nature and of which the in¬ 
dividual is not aware, may lead an active exist¬ 
ence and so influence thought and behavior. 
All psychopathologists, however, agree on one 
fundamental principle, however conflicting their 
interpretation of the various phenomena may 
be, namely, that our minds are made up of 
certain states, for some of which we are con¬ 
scious and for some not conscious or unaware. 
Whether in normal minds these extra or sub¬ 
conscious states are merely isolated phenomena, 
such as ideas or feelings, without being grouped 
into systems, or whether they are composed of 
more complex states capable of independent 
activity, is the crux of the whole question. By 
some this splitting of consciousness is always 
considered an indication or sign of disease, but 
it can be shown that normal everyday activities 
exist in which there is a transitory dissociation. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


11 


although this may consist of merely isolated ideas 
without organization. Of course, it is in the 
realm of mental pathology that we find the best 
known examples of subconscious phenomena. 

The theories of the subconscious are several 
and can be divided into various groups.^ The 
first theory states that the subconscious is that 
portion of the field of consciousness which at a 
given moment is outside the focus of attention. 
It is a marginal state in which the sense of 
awareness is more or less prominent. If we are 
aware of a certain matter it is conscious; if we 
are only partially aware of it, it is suppressed 
or dormant; if we are not aware of it, then it 
is subconscious, or dissociated. 

The second theory is that subconscious activ¬ 
ities consist of dissociated or split-off ideas. 
These are spht off from the main stream of 
consciousness and may become isolated, like 
the losses of sensation in hysterical anesthesia, 
or changes in the personality, as in amnesic 
states and multiple personality. 

The third theory is Frederick Myers’ poetical 
though most unpractical theory of the sub¬ 
liminal self.^ Myers’ doctrine is purely meta¬ 
physical and states that consciousness or what 

iFor a more detailed statement of these theories the reader is 
referred to Dr. Prince’s article in the symposium on “ The Sub¬ 
conscious .”—Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. II, Nos. 1-3, 1907. 

2“Human Personality and Its Survival of Bodily Death.” 


12 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


he calls the superliminal self, is only a small 
portion of that underlying great reservoir of 
consciousness which he terms the subliminal 
self, this latter making up the greater portion 
of our personality. We are only conscious of a 
small portion of our consciousness; the greatest 
part of it is submerged in the same way that 
the greatest portion of an iceberg is submerged 
and only a fragment shows above the surface 
of the water. He bases his ideas upon the 
psychological theory of thresholds of a mental 
level, above which sensation must rise before it 
can be manifest. Below this threshold of sen¬ 
sation lies what he calls the subliminal self. 
Or to draw an analogy from physics, conscious¬ 
ness is only the visible portion of the spectrum— 
the invisible, ultra portions are our subconscious 
selves. 

The fourth theory states that the subconscious 
consists of dissociated experiences, things for¬ 
gotten and that cannot be recalled, in other 
words, out of mind. To use a physical term, 
this is consciousness at rest, or consciousness 
which is not active. These inactive states of 
consciousness, while they may be recalled as 
memories either spontaneously or through cer¬ 
tain technical devices, for the moment are out 
of mind, because our thoughts are occupied with 
something else. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


13 


The fifth theory is the physiological idea of 
the subconscious, the theory known as uncon¬ 
scious brain-thinking or unconscious cerebration, 
which states that all subconscious manifesta¬ 
tions, such as hysteria, automatic writing, the 
subconscious solution of mathematical prob¬ 
lems, are merely pure nerve processes unaccom¬ 
panied by any thought whatsoever. According 
to Munsterberg, the subconscious is not psychi¬ 
cal at all; he would interpret it merely as a 
physiological process. 

A more practical theory, and one better sup¬ 
ported by the evidence, is that active thinking 
processes may exist although we may not be 
aware of them. These subconscious mental 
states of which we are unaware may have in¬ 
tense emotions, may fabricate, or may even work 
out complex intellectual problems. 

Thus the phenomena called automatic writ¬ 
ing, which will be described at length in a sub¬ 
sequent chapter is, briefly stated, obtained by 
placing a suitable subject in a state of abstrac¬ 
tion, putting a pencil in his hand, whereupon 
without any act of willing or conscious control, 
words, sentences, and even mathematical se¬ 
quences are written. 

One automatic writer, Mile. Helene Smith, 
reported by Flournoy,^ described thus in detail, 

^Th. Flournoy: “From India to the Planet Mars.” 


14 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


the conditions on the planet Mars. For some 
time these descriptions were held to signify 
that the subconscious subject was capable of 
supernatural communications, but careful an¬ 
alysis established two facts, both of which this 
chapter is concerned with emphasizing, firsts 
that subconscious processes were not mechanical 
reproductions, but might be very complicated 
new combinations of ideas; and, second^ that 
Mile. Smith, in her automatic writings, told 
nothing that might not have been gathered from 
her previous reading and experiences, in other 
words, it is unnecessary to call upon spiritual 
realms for an explanation. Concerning this 
latter, Flournoy states, that several years before 
the automatic writing developed to such a de¬ 
gree in his subject that she claimed to be able 
to communicate with the planet Mars, she had 
more than once directed her conversation to 
the habitability of this planet and to the dis¬ 
covery of the famous canals. 

In addition as the result of certain experi¬ 
ments with hypnosis, and the galvanic reactions 
in cases of multiple personality, it has been 
shown that under these circumstances complex 
calculations and translations could be done, and 
it would be inconceivable to think that these 
were pure physiological processes without 
thought. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


15 


At the sixth International Congress of 
Psychology, held at Geneva during August, 
1909, a discussion of the subconscious formed 
one of the important subjects. This discus¬ 
sion was led by Max Dessoir, Pierre Janet, and 
Morton Prince. Max Dessoir drew a close 
analogy between the field of consciousness and 
the field of vision. From the psychological 
standpoint, in the visual field we have the centre 
of the field which corresponds, according to 
Dessoir, to the focus of consciousness, and the 
periphery or edge, of the field, which corre¬ 
sponds to the subconscious. In the periphery 
or edge, the contents of consciousness are either 
very dimly perceived or not at all, and these 
peripheral contents can become dissociated, 
split off, from the main or focal consciousness 
and lead an independent existence. Morton 
Prince suggested that the term subconscious 
be discarded and the word co-conscious be sub¬ 
stituted in its place. The expression “ co- 
conscious,” relates to dissociated mental proc¬ 
esses of which the subject is not aware, such 
processes (in passing from the simple to the 
complex) as automatic writing, hypnosis, and 
hysterical states. These processes are not 
mere blind automatisms, but possess intelligent 
psychological qualities, such as reasoning, cal¬ 
culation, memory, and volition. Furthermore, 


16 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

in cases of multiple personality, these disin¬ 
tegrated mental processes may lead an inde¬ 
pendent existence, in every way analogous to a 
normal mind. He would limit the term “ un¬ 
conscious ” to certain physiological brain dis¬ 
positions, such as conserved memories, which 
do not become psychic processes until stimu¬ 
lated.' Janet in this discussion limited the 
term subconscious to certain phenomena ob¬ 
served only in hysterical conditions, or in other 
abnormal mental states resulting from a weak¬ 
ened power of mental synthesis. 

We will now pass to a brief statement of 
Freud’s theories of the unconscious, a theory 
which is both unique and far-reaching in its 
possibilities. Freud’s idea of the unconscious 
has aroused considerable discussion, not only 
for its rather revolutionary conception but be¬ 
cause of the influence of his theory upon the 
psycho-neuroses, literature, wit, folk-lore, in fact 


* Dr. Prince has also suggested the following classification. 
He would use the term “ subconscious ” in a generic sense, as 
implying all detached states of consciousness. This term he 
further subdivides into “ co-conscious,” meaning an active think¬ 
ing process, and “ unconscious,” which is equivalent to uncon¬ 
scious brain thinking, a process which is unaccompanied by con¬ 
sciousness of any sort. The following scheme will make this clear: 

Subconscious 


Co-Conscious 


Unconscious 



THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


17 


the whole field of human mental activity/ The 
practical application of the theory has made 
possible all recent psycho-analytic conceptions 
and interpretations. 

According to Freud, a psychic element may 
not only be unconscious but likewise exceedingly 
active and dynamic. For instance, in the hys¬ 
terical patient, an hysterical convulsion may be 
incomprehensible to both subject and observer, 
yet this convulsive attack may be representative 
of and produced by a dramatic incident in the 
subject’s life, but which lies unconsciously active 
in the memory, in other words, the patient is 
unaware of the cause of the convulsion. An 
unconscious idea, therefore, may be weak and 
fail to penetrate consciousness or it may be 
strong and over active (overdetermined). The 
unconscious is not always pathological, because 
it may produce certain phenomena in every¬ 
day life, such as slips of the tongue, errors of 
speech or memory, and, above all, in dreams 
of normal individuals, which latter, as demon¬ 
strated by psycho-analysis, may arise from the 
most complex unconscious ideas. The mental 
mechanisms entering into dream formation, as 

‘ Freud’s theory of the unconscious can be found scattered 
through his various publications on dreams, hysteria, wit, the 
psychopathology of everyday life, the sexual theory, and in his 
more recent contributions in which he analyzes the mind and 
superstitions of the savage and primitive man. 


18 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

will be shown in a subsequent chapter, have 
furnished us with the best data for an insight 
into the nature of the unconscious. 

The term “ unconscious ” as used by Freud, 
is not synonymous with “ unconscious ” in 
everyday speech. The latter connotes lack of 
consciousness or an unintentional or involuntary 
action. According to Freud, the unconscious 
means something in consciousness of which one 
is not aware, but which can be made known and 
brought into consciousness through the technique 
of psycho-analysis. Unconscious thoughts are 
therefore, existent and active in the normal in¬ 
dividual as well as in the neurotic. Unconscious 
thoughts or ideas frequently remain so, because 
a force termed resistance prevents them from 
becoming conscious. On the activity of this 
resistance with the consequent repression of 
unconscious thoughts, is based the Freudian 
conception of hysteria. The act of repression 
usually meets with ill success, because the re¬ 
pressed impulses (wishes) and complexes con¬ 
tinue to exist in the unconscious and thus send 
disguised substitutes into consciousness in the 
form of psycho-neurotic symptoms. Thus when 
unconscious thoughts break through into waking 
consciousness, we have disease, because the un¬ 
conscious wish thus comes into conflict with 
reality: when unconscious thoughts break 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


19 


through a partially sleeping consciousness, 
dreams are produced. The repression is, there¬ 
fore, the process which forces these unconscious 
thoughts out of consciousness and leads to a 
mental dissociation. Thus a mental dissociation 
is the result of this mental conflict and not ac¬ 
cording to one conception, as due to a weakened 
mental synthesis. 

Unconscious thoughts may not only be of 
recent date (adult), but may also reach into the 
deepest strata of the unconscious to the earliest 
years of childhood (the infantile unconscious), 
which latter is usually a repressed sexual or 
erotic instinct associated with a wish to forget. 
The word “sexual” is used by Freud in its 
broadest sense, like the word “ love ” in English. 
If an unconscious thought of which the subject 
is unaware can be brought to memory with 
slight effort, even momentarily, it is termed 
“ fore-conscious.” The unconscious is rich in 
expression, as in the neurotic; in symbolisms, as 
in dreams; in oddities, as in wit; and in sympto¬ 
matic actions, best seen in the absent-minded 
behavior of everyday life. It has also been 
shown through psycho-analysis, that uncon¬ 
scious individual phantasies which produce 
dreams, may, if they are active in the childhood 
of the race, give rise to myths and legends. 
Thus there is a psychological analogy between 


20 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


dreams and folklore; both use the same material 
for their fantasies/ In artistic literary crea¬ 
tions likewise, the unconscious wish may often 
be disclosed by psycho-analysis/ 

The unconscious exerts a persistent and 
dynamic influence on everyday life, so much 
so, that no element of thought or behavior is 
accidental, arbitrary or due to chance, but every 
conscious mental occurrence bears a direct, 
causal relation to its unconscious source. On 
this deterministic view-point is based all psycho¬ 
analytic investigation and the psycho-analytic 
therapy of the functional neuroses. For in¬ 
stance, if a subject is requested to make free 
associations to a given word or theme, the asso¬ 
ciations are really not free, but are conditioned 
by the unconscious or fore-conscious complexes. 
In dreams too, an identical mechanism can be 

^ K. Abraham, “ Dreams and Myths,” 1913. 

2 For interesting examples of the application of the psycho¬ 
analytic method to the study of literary creations, see a paper 
by Ernest Jones: “The CEdipus-Complex as an Explanation of 
Hamlet’s Mystery .”—American Journal of Psychology, January, 
1910,—also my book, “ The Hysteria of Lady Macbeth,” New 
York, 1912. Thus psycho-analysis has shown that Hamlet’s inhibi¬ 
tion lay in a repressed love for his mother which was more power¬ 
ful than his hostilities and that Lady Macbeth’s hysteria and 
somnambulism arose from a repressed wish for a child. The 
action of both characters is thus explained on psycho-sexual 
mechanisms.—See also A. R. Chandler’s interesting paper, “ Tragic 
Effect in Sophocles Analyzed according to the Freudian method.” 
The Monist, January, 1913. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


21 


found, the symbolism or the distortion of the 
dream bears a direct relationship to the latent 
(or unconscious) thoughts producing the dream. 
As stated by Freud,^ “ The unconscious must 
be accepted as the general basis of the psychic 
life. The unconscious is the larger circle which 
includes within itself the smaller circle of the 
conscious; everything conscious has its prelimi¬ 
nary step in the unconscious, whereas the un¬ 
conscious may stop with this step and still claim 
full value as a psychic activity. Properly 
speaking the unconscious is the real psychic; its 
inner nature is just as unknown to us as the 
reality of the external world and it is just as 
imperfectly reported to us through the data of 
consciousness as is the external world through 
the indications of our sensory organs.” 

Because of this persistent action of the un¬ 
conscious, we are all victims of our uncon¬ 
scious thoughts or complexes. Thus our moral 
or religious or political views of life are tinged 
by our latent, unconscious ideas, and yet, by a 
process of self-deception, we conceal the origin 
of our views and motives. This concealment, 
called rationalization, is responsible for the fre¬ 
quently erroneous idea that logic plays a part 
in our thoughts and motives. 

^ “ The Interpretation of Dreams ” (translated by A. A. Brill) 
—New York, 1913. 


22 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


3. The Subconscious Mechanism in Everyday Life 

In everyday life a number of these dissocia¬ 
tions may take place; for instance the forget¬ 
ting of a name, absent-mindedness, slips of the 
tongue and pen, purposeless actions, the feeling 
of having experienced an entirely new sensation 
before or having previously been in a place 
which we are visiting for the first time (param¬ 
nesia or illusions of memory). The forgetting 
of a name is a very prominent instance of a 
normal dissociation of consciousness. How 
many times has it occurred that when one tries 
to recall the name of a person or a place it 
lingers in a most aggravating manner on the 
tip of the tongue but later, perhaps hours 
later, probably while engaged in something else, 
when we have put the thing out of our mind, 
the name will suddenly flash into consciousness. 
Here is an example of a normal amnesia, and 
the principle of the sudden return of the for¬ 
gotten name while in a later state of abstraction, 
when the effort to remember the name has 
been put out of mind, is of great value in ab¬ 
normal psychology, particularly in the psycho¬ 
logical device of the synthesis of certain amnesic 
states, as will be pointed out later in the 
chapter on memory. This temporary dissocia¬ 
tion leading to the forgetting of a name may 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


23 


be caused by repression. The name is forgot¬ 
ten because it is associated with a painful or 
disagreeable experience which has been re¬ 
pressed in the unconscious and the forgetting is 
a purposeful act, whose function is to protect 
the mind from the recalling of the experience. 
Thus an unconscious but purposeful motive can 
be detected on analysis, namely, that the for¬ 
getting is determined by a painful mental proc¬ 
ess. An individual, for instance, attempted in 
vain to recall the name of the Swiss neurologist 
Veraguth, and only some hours later, the name 
suddenly flashed into his mind. In order to 
attempt to find out the reason for the forgetting 
of a name that was very familiar to the indi¬ 
vidual, free association procedures gave the fol¬ 
lowing:—“Veraguth—Verabad-Bad (the Ger¬ 
man for bath)—Bath—water—mineral water.” 
Thus with the free association method the dis¬ 
turbing complex became clear—in other words 
—while in Switzerland the previous summer the 
subject was suddenly taken ill with a disorder 
which required the use of a certain mineral 
water and thus was unable to travel as had 
been planned. The association of the disagree¬ 
able experience in Switzerland was the inhibit¬ 
ing force which prevented the recall of the name. 
Sometimes also, following severe intellectual 
work, a temporary forgetfulness for recent 


24 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


things may take place. When subjects are in 
a state of abstraction or absent-mindedness, a 
question may be asked to which they apparently 
pay no attention. Ten or fifteen minutes later 
they will suddenly look up and answer. The 
question was there, but at the moment it was 
asked, the person was in this state of abstraction 
and there was an immediate dissociation of the 
question, it became split off from the main 

stream of consciousness. When the state of 

\ 

abstraction was terminated a synthesis took 
place, the question became conscious where 
before it was subconscious. Here we have an 
example of the conservation of an absent- 
minded experience, although the conserved ex¬ 
perience was dissociated. As will be shown 
later, suggestibility is increased in normal ab¬ 
straction or absent-mindedness, a feature which 
makes it closely related to the artificial hypnotic 
states. Although absent-mindedness may be 
looked upon as a special condition, yet it is 
nothing more or less than a severe form of 
inattention or concentrated attention, as shown 
by the negative hallucinations which sometimes 
occur in this condition, namely, a failure to 
perceive what is immediately in front of the 
eyes. Normal forgetfulness is thus in some 
way allied to the pathological amnesias, being 
both a dissociation and repression of memories; 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


25 


absent-minded acts and apparently purposeless 
actions are simpler forms resembling the autom¬ 
atism of automatic writing or some hysterical 
symptoms, but having the same mental mech¬ 
anism. 

What takes place in normal absent-minded¬ 
ness to show that we have a state of temporary 
mental dissociation? In absent-mindedness the 
attention is focussed on one thing, either in¬ 
ternal or external. This focussing of attention 
narrows the field of personal consciousness and 
the portion of consciousness which lies outside 
this narrowed field is subconscious or dissoci¬ 
ated. In this dissociated state, many acts may 
be done automatically, such as buttoning of a 
coat, tearing up papers, etc. But all these 
automatic acts are preserved and can be revived 
later by appropriate methods. All absent- 
minded states are not dissociations, it is only 
severe grades where attention is intensely fo¬ 
cussed on some stimulus from without or some 
idea from within, that can be termed dissociated. 

“ This duality of the mind in normal absent-minded¬ 
ness has been pointed out by various observers. Its 
phenomena simulate those of artificial abstraction as 
they occur in automatic writing and hysterical states. 
There is nothing surprising in this, as the term 
‘ absent-mindedness ’ means dissociation of conscious¬ 
ness, a failure to perceive that which before was 


26 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


perceived and a failure to be conscious of acts intel¬ 
ligently performed. On the other hand, normal 
absent-mindedness is a distinctly special condition. 
We don’t go about in an absent-minded state. Absent- 
minded phenomena are manifestations of the tempo¬ 
rary disintegration of the personal self. But here the 
significant fact, the most significant of all, should not 
be lost sight of, that in the normal process of abstrac¬ 
tion we find evidence of the existence of a normal pre¬ 
arranged mechanism for dissociating consciousness and 
producing subconscious states.” * 

Dissociation is plainly a function of the mind 
or brain as was shown above. These normal 
dissociations are not limited to absent-minded¬ 
ness and forgetting of names, but may comprise 
other phenomena of our everyday life, such as 
the solution of problems by the secondary con¬ 
sciousness during sleep, slips of the tongue and 
pen, certain apparently accidental and purpose¬ 
less actions, and those tricks of mind called 
illusions of memory. In a most interesting little 
volume Freud has discussed in detail some of 
the phenomena of the unconscious, which we 
have briefly mentioned here, under the title of 
the psychopathology of everyday life. In it 
he shows that these apparently aimless acts and 
phenomena are motivated by mental mechanisms 
unknown to consciousness, mechanisms hidden 

^ Morton Prince: “ Problems of Abnormal Psychology.”— 
Psychological Review, March-May, 1905. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


27 


in the unconscious and which can be revealed 
only through psycho-analysis. Here again we 
see the fruitful results of the concept of deter¬ 
minism. Thus mechanisms occurring in the 
abnormal are found also in the normal. 

Both this observer and others have thus ex¬ 
plained the acts of everyday life, many of which 
seem purposeless, accidental, and without rea¬ 
son unless carefully studied. The mechanism 
which produces disturbances in the thoughts 
and actions of normal people is identical with 
the mechanism which causes the disturbances 
in the insane and in abnormal mental dissocia¬ 
tion. Automatic acts may be caused by an un¬ 
conscious, suppressed complex. Dreams are 
frequently the manifestation of hidden wishes 
or memories; the haunting of the mind by a 
popular melody resembles a pathological obses¬ 
sion. It is popularly supposed that most men¬ 
tal life is forgotten beyond recovery, but it has 
been shown that a great deal may be recovered 
through proper devices, provided sufficient 
traces had been left in the nervous system. 

Examples of the forgetting of a name result¬ 
ing from the linking of the name with a dis¬ 
agreeable experience, have already been given. 
A slip of the tongue may arise as a manifesta¬ 
tion of a suppressed thought or from an uncon¬ 
scious wish. This mechanism is not only seen 


28 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


in everyday life, but also in some cases of 
stammering. The same remarks can be applied 
to slips of the pen,—for instance, the case of 
writing the date of the previous year through¬ 
out January. This is not always due to habit, 
but in a number of cases it can be traced to a 
disinclination to admit to one’s self that the 
new year has brought them a year nearer to old 
age, in other words, such slips of the pen 
betray in all of us, the wish (conscious or un¬ 
conscious) to remain young. In writing the 
preface to the second edition of this book, such 
a slip of the pen occurred in writing “ Novem¬ 
ber 1914 ” instead of “ November 1913,” thus 
betraying my wish to bring the book as near 
up to date as possible. 

The phenomena of hypnosis and a great 
many of the phenomena of hysteria seem to be 
merely more intense and protracted states of 
absent-mindedness or abstraction, which, we 
have shown, is a dissociation of consciousness. 
So we see that there is nothing supernormal 
or supernatural in these subconscious or disso¬ 
ciated manifestations, startling as some of these 
phenomena may appear. The gradations from 
the normal to the abnormal are slow; there is 
no distinct line; there is an overlapping of 
types, and one cannot say where the normal 
ends and where the abnormal begins. 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


29 


A few other examples will show in further 
detail the presence of temporary subconscious 
phenomena in everyday life. In the first in¬ 
stance to be given it can be demonstrated that 
normal abstraction is a mental condition of in¬ 
creased suggestibility and thus resembles the 
artificially produced state of hypnosis. In the 
second case it can be shown that normal forget¬ 
fulness is a dissociation of memory, allied to the 
pathological amnesias. In common with these 
amnesias, it is possible to restore or synthetize 
the lost experience because the experience is 
really not lost, but is present in the subcon¬ 
scious. In the third example, that of a dream 
analysis furnished an interesting instance that 
unconscious manipulations of numbers appear¬ 
ing in a dream were not accidental, but rep¬ 
resented important unconscious mental conflicts 
of the subject. 

In the first case, three men were members 
of a party of seven seated at dinner. Dessert 
was being served and some of the party were 
already supplied. One of the members of the 
dinner party. Professor H., was talking to an¬ 
other member, Mr. G., in a low tone, and the 
latter was listening very intently. The dessert 
consisted of chocolate pie and squash pie, and 
as some had already been brought in Mr. G. 
had time to decide which he preferred. Mrs. 


30 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

R., who was sitting beside Mr. G., inquired 
which he would have. The latter was so ab¬ 
stracted in the conversation, that apparently he 
did not hear, and even on a repetition of the 
question, he gave no reply. Meanwhile another 
member of the party, in a spirit of jest, spoke 
softly to Mrs. R., but in such a manner that 
Mr. G. could hear, and said, “ Mr. G. always 
takes chocolate pie.” Immediately Mr. G. 
quickly replied, “ Chocolate pie, please.” This 
was done because it was well known to the 
other members of the party that Mr. G. had a 
profound distaste for chocolate pie. Meanwhile 
the waiter had brought the dessert (chocolate 
pie) to Mr. G., who by that time had finished 
his conversation with Professor H. Then, as if 
just coming to himself, Mr. G. turned to his 
companion and said, “ Who said chocolate pie? 
I wanted the other kind.” 

In the second case, a woman had given a 
check for a certain amount. For certain rea¬ 
sons, some two years later, it became necessary 
for her to recall the signature on the check, 
the exact date and place and the bank on which 
the check was drawn. She remembered that she 
had read the check carefully over at the time 
it was given to her, but two years later she 
could not recall by any amount of conscious 
effort, the date on the check. When she was 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


31 


placed in a state of abstraction by listening to 
a monotonous sound stimulus, in a few minutes 
all the data on the check were recalled. She 
was now able to recollect the exact date, the 
name of the bank, the name of the person to 
whom the check was payable, the number of the 
check, and finally the signature. By means of 
crystal gazing it was also possible to produce a 
vivid visual hallucination of the check. 

In the third case, a young man whose be¬ 
trothal was not approved by his mother who 
wished him to honorably terminate it, had the 
two following dreams. 

Dream /. He seemed to be in a lawyer’s 
office. The assistant was making notes and 
writing figures on sheets of paper, which fig¬ 
ures when added made the sum 3990. 

Dream II. He seemed to be standing near 
a large building, in front of which was a mov¬ 
ing-van with the figures 317 painted thereon. 

An analysis of the figures occurring in these 
two dreams demonstrated how complicated may 
be the various manipulations of figures taking 
place in the unconscious and furnished an exact 
demonstration of the subject’s mental confiict. 
This number symbolism was as follows:— 

317 = 3 + 1 + 7 = 11 
3990 = 39 + 9 ?h' 0 = 48 


32 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

48 + 11 = 59 (the age of the subject’s mother) 
3 + 9 + 9 + 0 = 21 
3 + 1 + 7 = 11 

21 +11 = 32 (the age of the subject’s fiancee) 

Thus the numbers occurring in the dreams 
were not accidental, but revealed the struggle 
taking place in the unconscious. This struggle 
was symbolized by the numbers, which rep¬ 
resented both the age of the subject’s mother 
and that of the subject’s fiancee. 

4. How the Subconscious Becomes Diseased 

Passing from the consideration of the sub¬ 
conscious as a mere psychological mechanism 
to a condition of specific disease, we also pass 
from a comparatively simple set of problems 
to a complex and much discussed field. Here 
we shall find the theory that subconscious ac¬ 
tivity is not mechanical but reasoning and is 
dynamically active or what is called the psycho¬ 
logical theory, more helpful and more easily 
applicable than in the simple forms. 

When the subconscious assumes extraordi¬ 
nary and painful attributes it may be said to be 
diseased, and then exhibits in a marked manner 
the independent or split-off existence which has 
been noted above, so much so that the entire 
range of such diseases are often included within 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


33 


the term dissociation. In these cases, it is not 
only the dissociation, but also the continued ac¬ 
tivity of the dissociated or unconscious portion 
of consciousness, due to a process of repression 
which causes the mischief. 

What is the cause of this dissociation and 
why does it at one time simply produce an 
absent-mindedness and at another time an hys¬ 
teria? It seems that when absent-mindedness 
becomes protracted we have hysteria, and when 
normal failure to recall a name takes in the 
events of a period, we have amnesia. Dissocia¬ 
tion remains normal, therefore, so long as it is 
transitory. When the dissociation is prolonged 
and assumes a continued activity, due to repres¬ 
sion and to the inability of the repressed thoughts 
to enter consciousness, then it becomes abnormal. 
It is probably this fact above all others which 
determines whether a subconscious process be 
normal or pathological. Concerning the exact 
cause of this repression and dissociation, we are 
in the dark. We know that exhaustion, certain 
emotions, unconscious mental conflicts, and cer¬ 
tain experimental devices are able to produce 
a mental dissociation, but exactly how this dis¬ 
sociation is brought about, abnormal psychology 
cannot at present offer a final solution. 

Janet interprets the abnormal phenomena, 
applying them more particularly to hysteria 


34 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

and hysterical dissociations, as being merely a 
chronic form of absent-mindedness, and con¬ 
cludes that clear-cut phenomena, analogous to 
the subconsciousness of hysteria, are infinitely 
rare in a normal mind. His conception, that 
a mental dissociation, particularly as seen in 
hysteria, is caused by an inborn weakness of 
mental synthesis, is somewhat unsatisfactory as 
shown by recent psycho-analytic investigations. 
It explains only a portion of the problem; it 
makes no attempt to solve the more funda¬ 
mental aspects of the unconscious mechanism, 
particularly repression, mental conflicts, and the 
persistence of childhood complexes. In general 
he states, that when these normal dissociations 
“ are really noted by competent observers, they 
cannot but be regarded as unhealthy accidents 
of a more or less transient character, and of a 
somewhat sinister omen.’' Breuer and Freud, 
on the contrary, state that severe dissociations 
are secondary to the development of what they 
term the ‘‘ hypnoidal state ” which is a condi¬ 
tion of abstraction in the normal sense. Accord¬ 
ing to this view, the pathological process is a 
dynamic one. In the conscious mental life, 
an active conflict is persistently taking place, 
in order to force certain ideas into the uncon¬ 
scious. The mechanism is therefore based upon 
a process of repression and when this repression 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


35 


fails, certain pathological symptoms tend to 
arise. This conflict and repression is mainly 
concerned with the sexual instincts of early 
childhood (pertinently termed the pre-historic 
period of our lives), and may cause either 
hysteria or an obsessional neurosis. When an 
unhealthy mental accident takes place in this 
hypnoidal state, there arises an inability to 
form a synthesis with the normal consciousness. 
Hence the abnormal state tends to be indefi¬ 
nitely prolonged, producing a pathological men¬ 
tal condition, sometimes hysteria, at other times 
recurrent automatic ideas called obsessions. 
“ Abnormal psychology, then, points strongly 
to the conclusion that there is a normal physio¬ 
logical dissociating mechanism which is the 
function of the nervous organization. It is this 
mechanism which brings about such spontaneous 
normal states as absent-mindedness, sleep, nor¬ 
mal induced states like hypnosis; and through 
its perversions the dissociations underlying ab¬ 
normal phenomena.’’" 

A feeling on the part of the subject, that the 
personality has disappeared or has changed 
from the normal to the abnormal, is often an 
evidence of mental dissociation. This Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence may occur in 

» Morton Prince; “Problems of Abnormal Psychology.”—TAe 
Psychological Review, 1905. 


36 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


many functional conditions, such as neurasthe¬ 
nia, psychasthenia, and in certain cases of de¬ 
lirium or mental depression. In hysteria or 
multiple personality, the new personality may 
lead an independent existence. 

Probably the most marked forms of func¬ 
tional neuroses are caused by the action of 
abnormal ideas or emotions. These ideas and 
emotions are usually present in groups (com¬ 
plexes) and are linked together as abnormal as¬ 
sociations. All complexes are not abnormal, 
however, for the formation of normal complexes 
forms the basis of all our educational processes. 
Habits and highly skilled movements are com¬ 
plexes which are the result of frequent repeti¬ 
tion. They are really unconscious memories, 
having an automatic action. 

Now these stored-up complexes, whether con¬ 
scious or dissociated, may influence the entire 
psycho-physical life. They may appear in 
dreams but in a fantastic and distorted man¬ 
ner; they may produce hysterical phenomena, or 
the dormant complex, if stimulated, may cause 
recurrent attacks of fear or obsessions, or it 
may produce certain inhibitions of thought as in 
the association tests. Sometimes, too, the com¬ 
plex or even an isolated idea related to the 
complex, may produee changes in the electrical 
resistance of the body or certain physiological 


THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


37 


effects, such as an acceleration of the pulse 
rate. The stored-up emotional complex is dis¬ 
tinctly the most important factor in abnormal 
psychology. Complexes may be formed in 
various ways, in everyday life, in dreams, or 
in states of abstraction. 

All stored-up complexes may either produce 
themselves spontaneously or can be artificially 
reproduced by means of special methods. This 
artificial reproduction of the unconscious com¬ 
plex is at the basis of all psycho-analysis. So 
we see that this reproduction may have a bene¬ 
ficial effect because once the complex is dis¬ 
covered it can usually be rendered harmless. If 
complexes were always present in memory it 
would be unnecessary to dig for them through 
psychological methods. But they are not al¬ 
ways present in memory; in fact, a complex 
may be unconscious and lead to a mental dis¬ 
sociation. Dissociated complexes are removed 
from the censorship of the conscious mind and, 
therefore, act in an abnormal manner. Under 
conditions which are not at present clearly 
understood, this complex may suddenly begin 
to act. So we see that this dissociated state 
may tend to become automatic, and it is this 
automatism which gives rise to many pathologi¬ 
cal states of consciousness. 

All psychotherapy is based upon one or more 


38 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


of these fundamental principles. If there is a 
state of dissociation the obvious remedy is syn¬ 
thesis, as can be shown in many hysterical mani¬ 
festations. If certain experiences are stored up, 
but cannot be spontaneously reproduced, then 
we must have recourse to some form of artifi¬ 
cial reproduction. In this way we can fill up 
the blanks in the mind which are caused by cer¬ 
tain types of functional amnesia. If a com¬ 
plex had an automatic or independent activity, 
then an effort should be made to bring about a 
control and finally an inhibition of this auto¬ 
matic state. 

From the evidence that can be gathered, from 
both normal and abnormal mental life, it seems 
that before a mental state can be termed disso¬ 
ciated or subconscious, it must possess several 
qualities. First this mental state must have 
an automatic activity. Second, it must act in¬ 
dependently from the rest of consciousness. 
Third, there must be an absence of awareness 
for this mental state. Fourth, there must be an 
impossibility of voluntarily reproducing the 
mental state in consciousness. Fifth, it ought 
to be possible to reproduce the detached men¬ 
tal state by an artificial method. A dissociation 
may be normal, as in absent-mindedness; it 
may be artificially produced, as in hypnosis; or 
it may be abnormal, as in hysteria. 


CHAPTER II 


AUTOMATIC WRITING AND CRYSTAL GAZING 

Automatic writing can be best understood 
by giving a brief account of a series of elab¬ 
orate experiments carried out by Mrs. Verrall.' 
The phenomena of automatic writing were 
Mrs. VerralFs personal products. She carried 
out a long series of experiments, some 322 in 
number, upon herself, and obtained as many 
‘‘ consciously ” written pieces of script. That 
she was already accustomed to having her sub¬ 
conscious mental life “ tapped,” so to speak, 
is expressly stated. In 1889-1892 she had 
recorded and later published a series of obser¬ 
vations on herself in crystal gazing. She al¬ 
lowed this faculty to remain dormant, however, 
until after repeated attempts, she found her¬ 
self able to produce automatic writing in 1901. 
The method employed to develop the faculty 
is instructive. She says, “ On January 17, 1901, 
I spent a quarter of an hour or more in sitting 
perfectly still in a dim light with a pencil in my 

^ Mrs. A. W. Verrall: “On a Series of Automatic Writings.”— 
Proc. Soc. for Psychical Research, Vol. XX, October, 1906. 

39 


40 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


hand, with a view to giving myself the oppor¬ 
tunity of recognizing any impression that I 
might have. I continued this daily. Unless my 
attention was actively engaged in some other 
direction, the pencil did not move; if I tried 
to occupy my attention with reading, the pencil 
merely produced some of the words of the book 
or occasionally traced characters resembling 
those on a brass table on which the pencil and 
paper lay.” These attempts were continued 
daily for about two weeks and only three at¬ 
tempts were made during the following month. 
Then, on resuming the experiments, the first suc¬ 
cessful result was obtained. A strong impulse to 
change the position of the pencil was felt, and, 
“ in obedience to the impulse I took the pencil 
between my thumb and first finger and after a 
few nonsense words, it wrote rapidly in Latin. 
On the first occasion, March 5, 1901, my hand 
wrote about eighty words almost entirely in 
Latin, but though the words are consecutive 
and seem to make phrases, and though phrases 
seem intelligible, there is no general sense in 
the passage.” 

These early attempts resulted in mere rub¬ 
bish, but by continued “ practice,” the writing 
became the logical expression of ideas. “ Whole 
phrases were intelligible,” until they finally de¬ 
veloped into elaborate compositions, written in- 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


41 


differently in English, Latin, and Greek, the 
experimenter having an excellent command of 
the two latter languages. Rude drawings were 
also included in these phenomena. Curiously 
enough, although Mrs. Verrall was perfectly 
familiar with French, and constantly dreamed 
in this language and was apt to use it absolutely 
in imaginary conversation with herself, there 
was no trace of this language in the script. The 
subject was entirely unaware of what her hand 
was writing, although she was apt to perceive 
a word or two, but never understood whether 
it made sense with what went before. “ Under 
these circumstances,” the report states, “ it will 
be seen that though I am aware at the moment 
of writing what language my hand is using, 
when the script is finished I often cannot say 
till I read it what language has been used, as 
the recollection of the words passes away with 
extreme rapidity.” In each experiment, as a 
rule, the writing ceased after a sheet of paper 
was covered, that is from 70 to 90 words, but 
as many as 265 have been produced. The con¬ 
tent of the waiting embraced all sorts of topics; 
for instance, allusions, descriptions of persons 
or places, exhortations, messages, reminiscences, 
anecdotes, philofsophical and quasimathematical 
disquisitions, enigmatic or oracular sayings, etc. 
On occasions, Latin and Greek verse was pro- 


42 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

duced, although the subject disclaimed normally 
any ability to write English verse. 

One interesting point mentioned is the influ¬ 
ence of the content of writing upon the writer, 
notwithstanding her ignorance of that content. 
“ Thus, once I found the tears running down 
my face when the writing was over; the con¬ 
tents apparently alluded to two friends of mine 
who had died under tragic circumstances.” 
On another occasion her left hand, which was 
not writing, was very cold and she had a recol¬ 
lection of feeling a breeze on her left side. 
These observations are in accord with similar 
phenomena frequently described in abnormal 
mental conditions when subconscious ideas pro¬ 
duce emotional feelings in the subject, whether 
of exaltation, depression, or fear. In the great 
majority of occasions while writing, Mrs. Ver- 
rall was in a “ perfectly normal condition,” al¬ 
though often she felt sleepy and a few times 
lost consciousness of her surroundings. Tele¬ 
pathic experiments, with the avowed object of 
determining whether information unknown to 
the writer could be conveyed by automatic writ¬ 
ing, were practically unsuccessful. The failure 
of these telepathic experiments is of particular 
value in freeing automatic writing from any 
supernormal interpretation and placing it be¬ 
yond doubt on the basis of the reproduction of 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


43 


past experiences or fabrications founded on 
these experiences. 

Sometimes there were concomitant phenom¬ 
ena, such as a “ sudden impulse ” to write (21 
out of 306 occasions) and a feeling of fatigue 
and discomfort in the right arm. There was, 
however, no anesthesia of the writing hand and 
none of that intense abstraction, with its sys¬ 
tematized anesthesia of all the sensory and 
motor functions, which has been observed in 
hysterical automatism. In these hysterical cases, 
however, the state of abstraction may be so 
deep that little or nothing is left of the wak¬ 
ing consciousness. Under these circumstances 
a kind of a new alternating personality has 
been formed and it is this new personality 
which does the writing. The real self thus be¬ 
comes a mere narrow automatism, perhaps al¬ 
most completely asleep, while the secondary self 
is active, wide awake, and intelligent. This 
production of automatic writing while the sub¬ 
ject was plunged into a state of deep abstrac¬ 
tion, was found in the Beauchamp case and in 
Janet’s case of Mme. B. To a certain extent 
it was also present in the Lowell case of am¬ 
nesia, although here the writing consisted of 
mere scraps of dissociated experiences. 

Automatic writing is a phenomenon of great 
experimental value. It is one of the simplest 


44 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


forms of mental dissociation, and thus through 
it can be easily studied such questions as whether 
we are dealing with mere mechanical repetitions 
of previous experiences or with unconscious ac¬ 
tivities accompanied by thought, and also 
whether these simple states are abortive, alter¬ 
nating personalities. Automatic writing also 
shows how automatism and independent activity 
enter into states of mental dissociation. Thus 
we have in automatic writing not only a device 
for tapping the subconscious, but also a simple 
form of experimental evidence for the analysis 
of many disputed points. 

To interpret automatic writing as a mere 
physiological nervous process without ideation 
is incompatible with the observed facts, be¬ 
cause not only are records of previous experi¬ 
ences reproduced, but also elaborate fabrications, 
mathematical reasoning, arithmetical problems, 
moods, feelings, and emotions. Sometimes a 
kind of an abortive secondary or alternating 
personality will make its appearance, on other 
occasions an alleged new language may be 
fabricated, such as in Hyslop’s case of Mrs. 
Smead and Flournoy’s case of Mile. Helene 
Smith. In both of these latter, there were 
alleged communications with the planet Mars, 
with the formation of an elaborate Martian 
language. 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 45 

In automatic writing the subject may or may 
not be aware of what the writing hand is pro¬ 
ducing, but all cases show automatism and 
independent activity. The test of automatic 
writing is not the sense of awareness, but rather 
the independent activity of the consciousness 
that is doing the writing. Automatic writing 
may occur in a number of conditions in which 
there is a splitting of consciousness or in which 
the mind of the subject lends itself to an easy 
dissociation. Automatic writers may show other 
signs of mental disintegration (such as crystal 
gazing), and it has also been found to occur 
in multiple personality and in certain forms of 
functional amnesia. In both these latter the 
writing reproduces experiences which the sub¬ 
ject cannot voluntarily recall to consciousness 
as memory. Yet the ability to do automatic 
writing is not always an evidence of disease, as 
the phenomenon may occur and be increased 
through practice in perfectly normal and well- 
balanced individuals. 

Now in Mrs. Verrall’s experiments, the con¬ 
tent of the writing did not represent mechanical 
repetition of previous experiences, such as might 
be done by physiological automatisms of nervous 
processes without accompanying thought, but 
there were often elaborate compositions of an 
original character. The data offered by the au- 


46 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

thor in these observations are of extreme value 
for the study of subconscious phenomena, in that 
they show the possibilities of the splitting of 
consciousness and the formation of large organ¬ 
ized systems of subconscious thought in healthy 
individuals. They are examples of subconscious 
activities in everyday life, occurring in subjects 
who are free from the manifestations of any 
disease. 

Mrs. Verrall’s data, therefore, contradict the 
view maintained by some academic psychol¬ 
ogists that subconscious phenomena, like tics 
and choreiform movements, are produced sim¬ 
ply by physiological nerve processes without 
thought. They also contribute to an under¬ 
standing of abnormal conditions, for with these 
normal phenomena in mind we can readily 
understand that when the subconscious ideas 
have an undesirable character, like fearful or 
horrifying or repugnant ideas or experiences, 
they may influence the personal consciousness 
and the whole organism unfavorably and pro¬ 
duce abnormal phenomena such as occur in 
hysteria. This was well seen in the hysterical 
condition of Miss F., who forms the subject of 
Chapter VIII. Here a horrifying experience 
became detached from the personal conscious¬ 
ness and caused a series of hysterical attacks. 
It was only when a synthesis of these detached 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


47 


experiences was formed with the waking con¬ 
sciousness that the attacks ceased. 

Now, in all Mrs. Verrall’s experiments, there 
was nothing to show that the content of the 
automatic writing did not represent the previous 
knowledge and experiences of the subject. The 
most pertinent example of pure fabrications of 
a highly imaginative character . occurring in 
automatic writing is seen in the “ Martian 
Cycle ” of Flournoy’s celebrated case of Mile. 
Helene Smith.^ Here the alleged supernormal 
knowledge of the trance personality was as 
much fabrication as the communications them¬ 
selves. For instance, in Mrs. VerralFs account, 
the fact that allusions to Neoplatonic phrase¬ 
ology appeared in the script before these writ¬ 
ers were read, can well be explained on the basis 
of a hasty but forgotten glance at their works, 
or even at some forgotten essay. 

Much that has been stated concerning the 
mechanism of automatic writing can be applied 
to crystal gazing. In spite of the part played 
by crystal gazing in necromancy and Eastern 
mysticism, nothing can be reproduced as a crys¬ 
tal vision which has not already been a part of 
personal experience, although this experience may 
have been dissociated. In the production of these 
visions the subject gazes into a crystal globe 

‘See Flournoy: “From India to the Planet Mars,” pp. 139-274. 


48 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

and at the same time attempts to keep the mind 
a blank and free from external stimuli. The 
state of abstraction thus produced in crystal 
gazing “ taps ” the subconscious experiences in 
the same manner that they are tapped through 
automatic writing. After a short time isolated 
or complex pictures appear in the crystal. 
These are usually very vague at first, but later 
become more distinct. Like automatic writing, 
crystal visions may take place in normal indi¬ 
viduals, although they are produced with greater 
ease in those persons who have an abnormal in¬ 
stability or who are victims of a pathological 
disintegration of the personality. In the Beau¬ 
champ case, the crystal visions threw consider¬ 
able light on the experiences of the various per¬ 
sonalities. In one of our cases (Mrs. Y."^), it 
served as a device for reproducing some of the 
incidents of the split personality. 

Mrs. Y. showed four multiple hypnotic states 
for which she was amnesic in her waking condi¬ 
tion. The crystal visions in this patient were 
revivals of past experiences. Some of these ex¬ 
periences the patient remembered; others could 
only be recalled in hypnosis. For instance, in 
one of the hypnotic states for which there was 
no memory on awakening, the emotional reac¬ 
tion was one of hatred and disgust. When a 

^ See chapter on “ The Splitting of a Personality.” 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


49 


crystal vision of the same experience was pro¬ 
duced, the emotional reaction was the same. It 
seems that whatever device was used for syn¬ 
thesis, either hypnosis or crystal gazing, the 
reproduced memories were associated with cer¬ 
tain emotions. These emotions had attached 
themselves to the dissociated experiences, and 
when these experiences were revived by either 
of the methods, the associated emotions likewise 
appear. The following is a partial record of 
the crystal visions belonging to dissociated 
experiences in the life of the subject, the de¬ 
tails of which were given in hypnosis and not 
remembered on awakening. 

“ I see my husband choking me, that terrible man 
choking me, with his hand around my throat.” 

“ I see Dr. J. chatting with me. I am in his office. 
It is so strange I am sitting there and seem to be in a 
hurry.” 

‘‘ I see my brother, a surgeon in the British army. 
He is just home from Burmah. He is in a gray suit 
and standing beside me and my sister. It is trimmed 
with red and he has all his decorations. The scene is 
on a beach.” 

The ease with which crystal visions were pro¬ 
duced in Miss Beauchamp, was one of the evi¬ 
dences of the facility with which disintegration 
took place in this subject. One of the inci- 


50 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


dents offers a good example of the manner in 
which subconscious experiences may be repro¬ 
duced as crystal visions/ The report follows, 
Chris and Miss Beauchamp being different per¬ 
sonalities of the same subject. Chris or Sally 
was mischievous, fond of fun, and playing prac¬ 
tical jokes; while Miss Beauchamp was quiet, 
sedate, and demure. 

In the course of the interview of May 1, reported in 
the last chapter, Chris remarked that she smelled the 
odor of a cigarette which I had been smoking. I of¬ 
fered her one. Delighted at the idea, she accepted, but 
smoked the cigarette very clumsily. The fact that 
smoking is something absolutely repugnant to Miss 
Beauchamp’s taste added to Chris’s enjoyment. Her 
manner was that of a child in mischief. 

“Won’t she be cross ” she laughed. 

“ Why.? ” 

“ She is not in the habit of smoking cigarettes. I 
shall smoke though.” Miss Beauchamp when 
awakened, entirely ignorant of what she had been doing, 
complained of a bitter taste in her mouth, but could 
not identify it, and I did not enlighten her. At the 
next interview I remarked to Chris, “ Wasn’t it funny 
to see Miss Beauchamp when she tasted the tobacco in 
her mouth, and did not know what it was ? ” 

Chris laughed and thought it was a good joke. “ Yes, 
she thought you had been putting quinine in her mouth, 
but did not dare ask her.” This remark, later verified 

‘“The Dissociation of a Personality,” pp. 54-56. 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


51 


by Miss Beauchamp, was one of many which showed 
Chris had knowledge of Miss Beauchamp’s thoughts. 

The sequel to this episode was amusing. At a later 
period I was engaged in making an experimental study 
of visions, and for the purpose had Miss Beauchamp 
(BI) look into a glass wherein she saw various visions 
of one kind and another. That is to say, the phe¬ 
nomena of so-called crystal visions were easily pro¬ 
duced, and she proved an excellent subject. These 
visions were, for the most part, reproductions of past 
experiences. In one experiment she was horrified and 
astonished on looking into the globe to see the scene of 
the cigarette rehearsed in all its details. She saw her¬ 
self sitting on a sofa—the identical sofa on which she 
was at the moment seated—smoking cigarettes. Her 
eyes, in the vision, were closed. (Chris’s eyes were al¬ 
ways closed at this time.) It was amusing to watch 
the expression of astonishment and chagrin with which 
she beheld herself in this Bohemian act. She indig¬ 
nantly repudiated the fact, declared it was not true, 
and that she had never smoked a cigarette in her life. 
The childlike expression on her face in the vision— 
Chris’s face—which she characterized as “ foolish ” 
also annoyed her. 

In another case of the automatic writing, 
which came under personal observation, the 
first efforts of the subject produced only scat¬ 
tered and disconnected words. By practice, 
however, the ability to do the writing increased, 
and the productions became more complex, until 


52 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


she was able to carry on communications with 
an alleged control. In this subject, there was 
neither abstraction nor a trance state and the 
sense of awareness during the period of writ¬ 
ing, was almost complete. The thoughts seemed 
to precede the writing by the fraction of a sec¬ 
ond, but they were automatic and independent 
of the subject. She had no control over these 
thoughts or over the movements of the hand 
which was doing the writing. It was very 
curious to watch this subject during this process. 
The eyes were widely opened as she watched the 
pencil in the moving hand. Sometimes the writ¬ 
ing was faint, but on other occasions the hand 
wrote rapidly and with such great force that 
the pencil point became frequently broken or 
the sheet of paper torn. Under some condi¬ 
tions mere marks and scrawls would be pro¬ 
duced; at other times, words and sentences. As 
a rule, however, even the sentences were rather 
vague in their meaning, while any elaborate 
fabrications were entirely absent. The subject 
was very easily hypnotized and on several occa¬ 
sions, while in a normal condition, she spon¬ 
taneously experienced a sense of unreality. 
These phenomena in connection with the auto¬ 
matic writing were evidences of the ease with 
which mental dissociation took place in this 
subject. Thus automatic writing and crystal 


AUTOMATIC WRITING 


53 


gazing are merely technical devices utilized in 
psychopathology, by means of which experi¬ 
ences long forgotten and impossible of recall by 
voluntary effort, may be revived. 

Sometimes also, automatic writing may 
merely fulfill or realize the wish of the subject, 
the same as in dreams and thus give rise to 
symptomatic actions. An interesting example 
of a fulfilling of a wish once came under per¬ 
sonal observation. It related to a young woman 
who had made . several ineffectual attempts to 
consult me while I was on a vacation. She had 
in the past experimented some with a planchette 
(a mechanical device for automatic writing) 
and one day she decided to ask ” the instru¬ 
ment the date of my return. The pencil there¬ 
upon persistently wrote the figure five and then 
added “ September 5,” which the subject took 
to mean that I would return on that day. Al¬ 
though I actually returned several days earlier, 
she did not call until September fifth, which 
date I found on questioning, to be most con¬ 
venient for her. Thus, through her actions she 
realized her wish for convenience, a wish which 
was revealed some time earlier through auto¬ 
matic writing. 


CHAPTER III 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 

When we approach the study of the emo¬ 
tions, physiology and psychology become in¬ 
separable. Before the mental accompaniments 
of the various emotions can be understood, we 
must have a clear comprehension of the physio¬ 
logical or physical aspects of these mental states. 
While this chapter will be devoted principally 
to the abnormal aspects of the emotions, yet it 
will be necessary to give a summary of the 
various theories of normal emotional processes, 
to which will be added the more recent experi¬ 
mental researches on the question, such as the 
electrical phenomena (the psycho-galvanic re¬ 
flex) and a modification of these phenomena, 
namely, the pulse reaction tests. Like sleep, 
the emotions are instinctive and are inseparable 
from our everyday psychic existence. As a 
preliminary, there can be applied to the emo¬ 
tions the same important question as can be 
applied to sleep, namely, at what step in evolu¬ 
tion did the emotions first appear? This ques¬ 
tion is more easily propounded than answered, 

54 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 55 

for the emotions are very complex phenomena 
and enter into all the phases of our every¬ 
day existence. In animals, possessing a well- 
organized nervous system, well-marked emo¬ 
tional expressions occur, yet these seem to be 
absent from the lower organisms, in which the 
nervous system is either entirely absent or is 
limited to a mere collection of ganglion cells. 
If this be true, then the manifestations of the 
emotions must have arisen at some phase of 
natural selection and possibly the physical ex¬ 
pressions of certain emotions were a strong fac¬ 
tor in the early struggles for existence. Since 
emotional expressions require a certain active 
state of consciousness, it may be said in general, 
although, of course, this statement is open to 
certain modifications and corrections, that the 
emotions can only take place in organisms whose 
nervous system has reached such a state of 
development that this active consciousness pos¬ 
sesses a certain intensity. Emotions, therefore, 
would be completely absent from all organisms 
whose nervous system was in a very rudi¬ 
mentary condition, incompletely developed in 
those animals possessing a moderately complex 
brain, and reaching their highest expression in 
the higher animals and man, where the nervous 
system has assumed a great complexity of 
structure. 


56 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Emotional reactions are highly complex func¬ 
tions of the nervous system and their intensity 
and complexity are parallel with the develop¬ 
ment of the brain. While there seem to be 
no special brain centres for the emotions, yet 
if the brain is removed or profoundly diseased, 
as in certain states of dementia and in some 
physiological experiments, the emotions either 
pass into simple reflex acts or are entirely 
absent. This is well seen in the emotional 
apathy of the terminal stages of such mental 
diseases as general paralysis and dementia 
prsecox. 

The higher animals, such as the cat, dog, cer¬ 
tain birds, monkeys, and anthropoid apes, not 
only have a wide range of emotions, but the 
physiological expression of these emotions is 
almost as graphic as in man. Of course, 
none of these animals can express the finer 
emotions, such as meditation, laughter, blushing, 
modesty, etc., but the more primitive and ele¬ 
mentary emotional expressions, such as anger, 
fear, and surprise are as well developed in some 
of the higher vertebrates as in man. Whether 
or not the accompanying mental states are as 
intense, we have no means of judging, but cer¬ 
tainly if the physical expression of these states 
can be taken as an indication, they must be so in 
every particular, although in animals we are 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


57 


hopelessly cut off from any introspective 
evidence. 

Taking the emotions in their widest sense, as 
comprising both the physiological symptoms 
and their mental accompaniments, we arrive at 
the important question,—what is the cause and 
interpretation of these various manifestations? 
It is a fact of common experience that certain 
reactions of the bodily organs are characteristic 
of certain emotions, bodily manifestations which 
have been known from time immemorial and have 
pervaded the literature and art of all nations. 
These physiological accompaniments of the emo¬ 
tions take place in all the organs,—respiration 
becomes affected, the heart beat becomes either 
fast or slow, there is either an inhibition or an 
excitation of the secretory and mechanical fac¬ 
tors of the stomach and intestines, the muscular 
system changes in its tension, and even the skin 
reacts in various ways. The sight or even the 
idea of a tempting morsel of food will “ make 
the mouth water,” while fear inhibits the salivary 
secretion, so that an excessive dryness of the 
mouth takes place. In states of bravery the 
limbs are held tense by the muscular contrac¬ 
tions;—in fear, the limbs tremble, the heart¬ 
beat becomes accelerated, the “ hair of the flesh 
stands up.” Mental states of anxiety or ap¬ 
prehension frequently accompany pathological 


58 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


states of rapid heart reaction, known in medicine 
as paroxysmal tachycardia. 

We see, then, that the emotions possess two 
distinct phenomena,—the physical or physio¬ 
logical, relating to the viscera, and the psychical 
or state of cerebral action. Some authorities 
state that emotion begins as a mental state, 
and it is this mental state which influences the 
various organs and the vascular apparatus. 
For them, the emotions are primary cerebral 
reactions, the visceral expressions being purely 
secondary. This theory is supported by certain 
important facts. If the hemispheres of the 
brain are removed in an animal (Goltz’s experi¬ 
ments) it will not show the slightest vestige 
of emotional reaction. Even the coarser emo¬ 
tions, such as anger and pleasure, will be absent. 
In states of dementia or mental enfeeblement 
and in certain other mental diseases, the finer 
emotions are likewise absent. In other words, 
there is a condition of what has been called 
emotional apathy or emotional atrophy. The 
opposite view, which may be termed the periph¬ 
eral theory of the emotions, as held by James, 
Lange, and Sergi, states that the mental state 
of emotion is secondary to the actions of the 
viscera, particularly the circulatory organs. 
These organs are thrown into a state of activity 
and excitation through certain peculiar stimuli. 



TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


59 


Professor James says, “ Our natural way of 
thinking about these coarser emotions is that 
the mental perception of some fact excites the 
mental affection called the emotion and that this 
latter state of mind gives rise to the bodily ex¬ 
pression. My theory, on the contrary, is that 
the bodily changes follow directly the percep¬ 
tion of the exciting fact, and that our feeling 
of the same changes as they occur is the emo¬ 
tion. Common sense says, we lose our fortune, 
are sorry and weep; we meet a bear, are fright¬ 
ened and run; we are insulted by a rival, are 
angry and strike. . . The more rational state¬ 
ment is that we feel sorry because we cry, angry 
because we strike, afraid because we tremble, and 
not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are 
sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be. . . 
If we fancy some strong emotion and then try 
to abstract from our consciousness of it all the 
feelings of its bodily symptoms, we find we have 
nothing left behind, no ‘mind stuff’ out of 
which the emotion can be constituted, and that 
a cold and mental state of intellectual percep¬ 
tion is all that remains.”' In order to dis¬ 
prove this hypothesis, Sherrington has shown," 

* William James: “The Principles of Psychology,” Vol. II, 
pp. 442 et seq. 

^C. S. Sherrington; “The Integrative Action of the Nervous 
System.” 


60 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


that if an experiment be performed on an animal 
in sueh a manner so as to remove all sensation 
of the bodily organs, the skin and muscles, upon 
which Professor James lays so much stress in 
his peripheral theory of the emotions, that the 
animal thus experimented upon shows all grades 
of emotional expression. Here the brain was 
left intact but the peripheral sensations were 
obliterated, yet no alteration occurred in the 
emotional character of the animal. Further¬ 
more, the changes in the electrical resistance of 
the body under the influence of certain emotions 
as measured by a delicate galvanometer and also 
the emotional fluctuations in the pulse rate, force 
us back to the fact that the emotions are central 
and not peripheral in origin. To the ordinary 
individual, this central theory of the emotions is 
the most logical one; he trembles because he 
is afraid, he strikes because he is angry, etc. 

It has also been shown, by the investigations 
of the Russian physiologist Pawlow,^ how the 
secretions of the stomach and intestines are 
largely influenced by the mental state of the 
animals on which he experimented. The results 
obtained have also been confirmed in experi¬ 
ments on man. Gastric and salivary secretion 
took place in dogs when the animals were 

* See the interesting book by J. P. Pawlow: “The Work of the 
Digestive Glands,” 1910. 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


61 


tempted with food, but not with indifferent sub¬ 
stances, such as stones or pieces of rubber, 
whereas threatening a dog with a whip entirely 
arrested gastric secretion. These experiments 
showed that the stimulus of a pleasant emotion, 
associated with food, called into activity the 
secretion of the gastric and salivary glands, 
while the depressing emotion of fear had an 
exactly opposite, inhibitory influence. It is a 
matter of common observation how the sight or 
even the abstract idea of an appetizing, tempt¬ 
ing morsel of food will make the mouth water, 
while the states of fear, and also in the patho¬ 
logical fear neuroses, an opposite condition 
takes place, the secretion of saliva is inhibited 
and a dryness of the mouth results. 

Furthermore, Cannon has shown, in some in¬ 
vestigations on the movements of the stomach 
and intestines in animals, the intimate relation¬ 
ship existing between emotional states and the 
mechanical factors of digestion, and also that 
the secretion of the adrenal gland may be influ¬ 
enced by emotional stimulation. He states, for 
instance— 

“ Any signs of emotional disturbance, even the rest¬ 
lessness and emotional mewing, which may be taken to 
indicate uneasiness and discomfort, were accompanied 
in the cat by total cessation of the segmenting move¬ 
ments of the small intestines, as well as complete quies- 



62 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


cence of the gastric mechanism. During more than 
an hour of continuous watching such signs of anxiety 
have been attended by entire inactivity of every part 
of the alimentary canal.” 

Studies along these lines are of value in the 
interpretation of pathological effects of certain 
emotions upon the gastro-intestinal functions of 
man, and they throw considerable light upon the 
visceral expressions of some of the fear neuroses. 
Such investigations help to explain the mys¬ 
terious effect of certain psychical processes upon 
the body. The various publications of Pawlow 
had already pointed out the influences of mental 
states in animals up^on the secretions and motor 
power of both the stomach and intestines. Ob¬ 
servations in man have shown the same phenom¬ 
ena to occur as the result of certain emotional 
conditions. Cannon does not restrict the word 
emotions to violent affective states, but uses the 
term in a wider, popular sense, as including all 
affective experiences. The emotions precede the 
bodily change, the nervous connections of the 
viscera acting merely as conduction paths. It 
was demonstrated by Cannon, that if these nerv¬ 
ous connections were severed, mental excitement 
caused no inhibitory effect upon the movements 
of the stomach or intestines. Pawlow also 
showed that if the nervous connections of the 
stomach were severed, there was no flow of 
gastric juice in his so-called sham feeding experi- 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 63 

merits. If we take these physiological investiga¬ 
tions (Sherrington, Pawlow, Cannon), as the 
basis of a theory, it would seem to follow that 
the visceral expressions of the emotions were 
secondary to the psychical state. 

Both the motor power and secretory activity 
of the alimentary canal are largely dependent 
upon the nature of the excitation in the nervous 
system. Normal secretion is favored by pleas¬ 
urable sensations; unpleasant feelings, such as 
fright and rage, are accompanied not only by 
a failure of secretion, but also by total cessation 
of the movements of the stomach and intestine. 
The sight of food to a hungry subject causes a 
flow of gastric juice. The inhibitory result of 
emotional states can persist long after the cessa¬ 
tion of the exciting condition. Many of the 
abnormal motor and secretory digestive dis¬ 
turbances of man are caused by the emotional 
state of the subject.' These physiological experi¬ 
ments show how profoundly the mental state 
may affect favorably or unfavorably, not only 
the secretions but also the movements of the 
stomach and intestines. 

We are now prepared to briefly discuss the 
more exact methods of detecting the emotions, 
methods which not only have the qualitative 
value of giving us a finer insight into the mental 
side of the feehngs, but which also have a certain 


61 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

quantitative value. In other words, we are able 
to measure the emotions the same way as by 
other methods we can measure the depth of 
sleep or the intensity of a sensation of sound, 
light, or pain. These newer methods no longer 
make us dependent on the coarser bodily ex¬ 
pressions of feelings, such as blushing when 
we are ashamed, crying when we are in grief, 
or trembling when we are afraid. Yet in many 
cases the shame, grief, or fear may be sup¬ 
pressed by the subject and show no outward 
manifestations. Further, these feelings may be 
connected with a special episode or experi¬ 
ence which the subject is anxious to hide for 
fear of detection, or purposely conceals, be¬ 
cause even the thinking of the experience may 
be mentally painful. We shall see later how 
large a part these “ strangulated emotions ” 
play in the genesis of certain hysterical mani¬ 
festations. How then are we to detect these 
hidden suppressed emotions, when we have no 
gross bodily symptoms to guide us and give 
us a clue? How are we to know that cer¬ 
tain words which we speak, or certain incidents 
to which we may refer, arouse in the mind 
of the subject an emotional meaning? What 
is the effect of this aroused emotion upon the 
finer physiological processes of the body or upon 
the actions of the mind? It is just here 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


65 


that experimental psychology comes to our 
rescue. 

Recent investigations on the emotions have 
furnished us with exact methods of psycho¬ 
physical research in this direction.^ In states of 
abstraction, produced by having a reclining sub¬ 
ject listen to a monotonous sound stimulus, such 
as the beating of a metronome, there results 
after a time a lowering of the pulse rate. This 
lowered or rest pulse rate remains permanent, so 
long as the subject continues in this quiescent 
mental state. If, while he is in this condition, 
the subject be given certain abstract problems 
to solve, or certain startling and painful stimuli 
be used, or if he be made to think of indifferent 
words, the pulse rate remains unchanged. The 
condition of mental serenity in the abstract state 
is unaltered. [See Fig. I.] On the contrary, 
if the subject be asked to recall individual 
emotional experiences or to think of isolated 
test words having a direct association or rela¬ 
tion to these experiences, there results an almost 
immediate increase in the pulse rate. This in¬ 
crease lasts only for a limited time, however. 
That is to say, only words or mental processes 
suggesting emotions can cause an increase in the 

^ Coriat: “ Certain Pulse Reactions as a Measure of the Emo¬ 
tions .”—Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. IV, No. 4, 1909. 
Peterson and Jung: “ Psycho-Physical Investigations with the 
Galvanometer.”— Brain, Vol. XXX, 1907. 


66 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


rate of the pulse. All other words or mental 
processes remain ineffective. This is not a blind 
automatic phenomenon, however, for there seems 




Fig. I.—A pulse curve in a normal subject in a state of abstrac¬ 
tion. In this experiment the subject was requested to do some 
problems requiring mental effort, such as ordinary mental 
calculation, or to think of ordinary words that had no per¬ 
sonal emotional meaning. Notice that no change took place 
in the pulse curve. It remained a straight line. The numbers 
above the curve refer to the pulse beats per minute. 

to be a selective action of the nervous mechan¬ 
ism controlling the heart beat, to the influence 
of certain emotions. 

A few examples .taken from personal observa¬ 
tions will make the matter clearer. For instance, 
in a patient who was afraid to remain alone be¬ 
cause of an abnormal state of fear, if asked to 
think of the word alone, the pulse rate rose from 
88 to 104 per minute. An indifferent word, such 
as snow, caused no increase in the pulse rate. 
Here the word alone, through association, re¬ 
called to the patient’s mind all the emotions of 
the pathological fears, whereas the word snow 
stimulated no emotion whatsoever. In another 
subject, who had a fear of dogs, indifferent 
words were ineffective, whereas if the subject 
were asked to think of the word dog or of words 




TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


67 


relating to this particular animal, the pulse rate 
would increase over the usual rate from 12 to 
20 per minute. [See Fig. II.] In still an¬ 
other patient, during a 
series of experiments, 
the test words hook and 
glass were given as in¬ 
different stimuli. To 
my surprise each word 
caused a marked ac¬ 
celeration of the pulse. 

Later questioning re¬ 
vealed the interesting 
fact, that some time 
previously she had 
dreamed of broken 
glass, and on consulting a popular dream hook, 
found that this dream signified trouble. The 
idea of trouble thus evolved as an emotion was 
woven into the patient’s delusions, although 
previously she had failed to mention, in fact 
purposely concealed, these particular episodes. 
They were revealed, however, by the pulse reac¬ 
tions. [See Fig. III.] Thus we seem to have, 
not only a method for measuring and detecting 
known emotions, but also a method for dis¬ 
covering suppressed or concealed emotions, and 
furthermore, another experimental proof that the 
psychical state is the cause of the physiological 


fib 



Fig. II.—A portion of a pulse 
curve from a subject who 
had an unreasonable and 
abnormal fear of dogs. 
Note the sudden rise at 1, 
the pulse rate increasing 
from 96 to 116 beats a 
minute, when the word dog 
was mentioned. 


68 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


reaction. The pulse rate thus hecomes a deli¬ 
cate index for the emotions and for the stimu¬ 
lation of complexes. For these pulse reaction 



Fig. III.—A portion of the pulse curve, from the experiments on 
the subject mentioned in the text. Note the two sudden rises 
in the curve at 1 and 2, when the words glass and book were 
used as test words. Both these words had a strong emotional 
meaning for the subject. The figures at the top of the curve 
refer to the number of pulse beats a minute. 

phenomena, the name of the psycho-cardiac re¬ 
flex is proposed. This reflex, which has been 
of value in the analysis of certain abnormal 
mental states, is due to the action of the nerv¬ 
ous system upon the rate of the heart beat. 

Other experiments show these phenomena in 
a still more remarkable manner. The apparatus 
used is more complicated however, and the cause 
of the reactions not so clear. It has been 
demonstrated that if a weak electrical current be 
passed through the body from a galvanic cell, 
the subject being connected with the battery 
by means of the palms of the hands placed 
flat on a metal plate, and this current be 
measured by a delicate instrument called a gal¬ 
vanometer, that the emotions will cause varia¬ 
tions in this electrical current. These variations 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


69 


occur particularly when words having an emo¬ 
tional meaning are called out to the subject, 
indifferent test words or ordinary intellectual 
processes causing no reaction whatever. [See 
Fig. IV.] The activity of the sweat glands in 



Fig. IV.—A galvanometric curve in one of Jung’s cases. The 
subject was a total abstainer. Ordinary test words up to 6 
produced no effect. When the word restaurant was mentioned 
at 7, there was an immediate rise in the curve. Later the 
subject confessed that in the past he had once been arrested 
for drunkenness, and because of this occurrence he had since 
been a total abstainer. In this particular case, the word 
restaurant stimulated strong emotional memories, hence the 
electrical reaction. 


the skin is under nervous influence; changes 
in this activity through emotional disturbances 
alter the resistance of these glands, and this 
perhaps is the cause of the electrical varia¬ 
tions. A more recent investigation has shown 
that the galvanic phenomenon may be of mus¬ 
cular origin. It is of interest to note that 
in those mental conditions in which the emo¬ 
tions are absent, such as in the states of 
dementia, the electrical reactions are also ab¬ 
sent. Where the emotions are intense and 
active, as in hysteria, the electrical reactions are 




70 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


very marked and prolonged. In some pathologi¬ 
cal conditions, as in cases of multiple personality, 
it is not necessary that the test words relate to 
emotional states present in consciousness. Sub¬ 
conscious mental experiences can cause electrical 
variations in the same manner as conscious proc¬ 
esses, a fact which is also true of the pulse varia¬ 
tions. [See Fig. V.] It has also been demon- 



Fig. V.—A portion of a galvanometric curve from a case of 
multiple personality reported by Dr. Prince. The subject had 
an intense fear of cats, probably originating in an experience 
of childhood, which was revealed through automatic writing. 
Here a subconscious mental experience caused the electrical 
reaction. When the test word cat was mentioned at 1 there 
followed an immediate rise in the galvanometric curve. 


strated, that deflections of the delicate galvanom¬ 
eter can take place even when the battery is not 
used. Here the electrical variations under the 
influence of the emotions seem to be caused by a 
current generated in the body itself. These 
electrical phenomena associated with the emo¬ 
tions have been called the psycho-physical gal¬ 
vanic reflex, or more simply, the psychogalvanic 
reaction. 

In these pulse reaction tests and in the psycho¬ 
galvanic reaction, we seem to have methods of 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


71 


precision in investigating and measuring the 
effects of the emotions. Whether these emo¬ 
tions are present in consciousness, but sup¬ 
pressed, or only present as subconscious emo¬ 
tional complexes, the electrical and pulse effects 
are the same. Both methods are merely more 
exact modifications of the association tests for 
the detection of emotional complexes. In these 
latter, however, the reactions are inhibitions or 
lengthenings of thought, whereas in the former 
the phenomena are either physiological or elec¬ 
trical. All of these test methods, however, are 
reactions to emotional conditions and have no 
relation to purely intellectual processes. 

The pathological effects of certain emotions 
are of great interest. It is well known that har¬ 
rowing experiences may lead to sudden death 
and that emotional effects enter largely into cer¬ 
tain individual religious conversions or by a 
kind of mental contagion are the prime factors 
in religious revivals. The rhythmic character of 
the emotions and their motor accompaniments 
are of great interest in all revivals. Frequently 
hysterical phenomena make their appearance,— 
trance, stupor, mutism, blindness, hallucinations, 
visions. A series of emotional shocks may bring 
about grave nervous disorders such as neuras¬ 
thenia, hysteria, association, and fear neuroses, 
certain hysterical dissociations, or they may lead 


72 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

to profound changes in the personality, as in 
cases of extensive general amnesia or in multiple 
personality. 

According to Fere, an emotion may be con¬ 
sidered as morbid or pathological when its 
physiological accompaniments take place with 
extraordinary intensity, when the emotion is 
produced without a sufficient determining cause, 
and when the emotional effects are unduly pro¬ 
longed. Emotions are most likely to lead to 
pathological phenomena when at the time of the 
emotion a state of exhaustion or fatigue was 
present. In fact, an emotional experience is 
most liable to recur again under states of 
fatigue. 

This is well illustrated in the evolution of 
certain fear neuroses, in which exhaustion, pain, 
or certain suppressed feelings precede the first 
attack of fear, which then becomes automatically 
repeated as a kind of an unconscious or sub¬ 
conscious automatism. Sometimes, instead of 
the psychical accompaniment, the physiological 
symptoms of the original emotion persist and 
are repeated, as in certain cases of functional 
intestinal disturbance or in the persistence of a 
rapid heart beat without any organic basis. 
Under other conditions an attack of a previous 
organic nervous disease may be induced by a 
severe emotional shock, as in the case of the 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


73 


epileptic attack of Othello. After the harrow¬ 
ing experiences of a railroad accident, the sud¬ 
den shock of the accident, even with little or 
no physical injury, may lead to distressing types 
of hysteria and neurasthenia, from which the 
person may not recover for months or years, 
even without litigation or even after the claim 
for damages has been satisfactorily arranged. 
These form the large class of cases known as 
the traumatic neuroses. Here it is the psychical 
and not the physical shock which caused the dis¬ 
integration. 

Suppression of certain memories or experi¬ 
ences having a strong emotional meaning can 
lead to hysterical symptoms, such as paralysis, 
contractures, convulsions, or even changes in the 
mental state or the personality of the individual. 
It is not necessary that the suppressed or 
strangulated emotions ” remain in conscious¬ 
ness, for under certain conditions they can exer¬ 
cise their pernicious effect even if they are sub¬ 
conscious by a process termed “ conversion ” by 
Freud. Sometimes a complete confession on 
the part of the subject of the emotional experi¬ 
ences which he is voluntarily suppressing will 
have a profound influence in relieving, or even 
curing, the abnormal symptoms which seem to 
be dependent on this suppression. The mechan¬ 
ism of this therapeutic procedure, as will be 


74 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


later pointed out in more detail, is due to the 
breaking down of the resistances which pre¬ 
vented the unconscious thoughts or emotions 
from reaching consciousness. This disintegratory 
effect of the emotions in leading to certain 
pathological phenomena of dissociation, has 
been shown in a number of published cases. In 
Janet's case of Mme. D. the sudden mental 
shock of the false news of her husband’s death 
caused almost immediately an hysterical attack 
with delirium and convulsions, which lasted sev¬ 
eral days. At the end of this time it was found 
that not only had the patient forgotten every¬ 
thing that occurred for six weeks previous to 
the attack (retrograde amnesia), but continue^ 
to forget everything as fast as it happened 
(continuous amnesia). In the chapter on mem¬ 
ory, however, it will be pointed out that, in this 
case, the memories were not entirely obliterated, 
but were simply dissociated from her conscious 
perception. These dissociated experiences could 
not only be recalled when the patient was hyp¬ 
notized but also appeared in dreams. In the 
case of Miss Beauchamp, the genesis of the 
changes in the personality could be traced to 
an emotional shock. Furthermore, in the case 
of Mrs. Y., who developed a form of hysterical 
paralysis with four distinct hypnotic personali¬ 
ties, it was possible to trace the origin of the 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 75 

hysterical condition back to a series of harrow¬ 
ing emotional experiences/ In a case of noc¬ 
turnal paralysis, the origin of the condition was 
the emotional shock incident to the sudden death 
of the patient’s child. Peculiar functional at¬ 
tacks simulating epilepsy may also recur by as¬ 
sociation with the emotional experience which 
caused the first attack of convulsions. In other 
words, the emotions can so act as to lead to a 
splitting of consciousness and thus cause changes 
in the personality, losses of memory, psycho¬ 
epileptic attacks, and certain recurrent states of 
fear (recurrent psycho-motor states). Any 
emotional complex or experience which has be¬ 
come dormant or quiescent can be thrown into 
activity again through association, either from 
within or without, and thus lead to certain 
pathological phenomena (hysterical, psycho¬ 
epileptic, phobias, obsessions). These various 
phenomena, to a limited degree, have also their 
prototype in everyday life. The fear of thun¬ 
der-storms, the sense of nausea that occurs in 
some persons at the sight or odor of certain 
foods, as for instance, strawberries or pepper¬ 
mint, the sense of awe that overwhelms others 
at the sight of the sea, the feeling of disgust for 
snakes, worms, or crawling things, are instances 
in question. Here certain dormant experiences 

» This case forms the subject of Part II, Chapter IV. 


76 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

with an emotional coloring (fear, nausea, awe, 
disgust) are awakened through association, 
some of which can be traced back to a for¬ 
gotten episode in childhood. 

In contrast with this disintegrating effect of 
painful emotions, the integrating or curative or 
rather the synthetic effect of pleasurable emo¬ 
tions and confidence is a well-known fact in 
psychology. As Bain says, “ States of pleasure 
are concomitant with an increase and states of 
pain with an abatement of some or all of the 
vital functions.” This psychological mechanism 
is of great value in certain psychotherapeutic 
procedures, such as the successful treatment of 
certain states of depression, exhaustion, and 
fear. This has been experimentally proven by 
some studies of the physiological accompani¬ 
ments of feeling. Claparede states as follows 
concerning this condition, “ Each one of us can 
testify that, under diverse conditions, confidence 
gives strength, it is dynamogenic. A neuropath 
is most often a being who mistrusts himself, 
who shrinks and inhibits himself; in a word, one 
who strains his reflexes of defence. Confidence, 
which is the antagonist of this mental defence, 
acts in relaxing these reflexes of defence; at the 
same time it sets free the energy which had been 
stored up, potentialized by the activity of de¬ 
fence. This available energy, this energy in a 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


77 


nascent state, can then be usefully employed in 
the physical or psychic re-education of the pa¬ 
tient.” Here we have a biological interpreta¬ 
tion of the doctrine of reserve energy. 

The practical application of this theory was 
well exemplified in the synthesis of the various 
personalities of Miss Beauchamp and also in 
the following personal observations. A highly 
intelligent woman, under the stress of a series of 
harrowing experiences, which she was compelled 
to voluntarily suppress during a number of 
years, developed a gradual change in her per¬ 
sonality. Whereas previously she had been 
cheerful, fond of company and travel, and inter¬ 
ested in general affairs, she became moody, de¬ 
pressed, and seclusive, easily exhausted, lost her 
interest in things in general, and became self- 
centred and abnormally self-conscious. The 
treatment of this condition consisted in the 
stimulation of pleasurable emotions and of a 
sense of elation and well-being, which after a 
time changed, or rather synthetized her, back 
to her normal self. In another case, one of 
psychasthenia with a marked feeling of deper¬ 
sonalization, the same procedure was eminently 
successful. This patient characterized her nor¬ 
mal self as a “ solid substance, living, growing,” 
and her abnormal self as a ‘‘ bloodless nothing— 
if I shut my eyes I do not think or feel, as 


78 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

though my thoughts went through me without 
resistance/' Here again the integrating, syn- 
thetizing effect of the emotion of well-being and 
joy was successful in effecting a cure. 

Thus we see that the emotions can act either 
for good or evil. They may be reactions of 
defence or have painful effect in certain 
pathological mental states. On the other hand, 
the suppression of painful emotional experi¬ 
ences or emotional shocks, either singly or in 
series, may lead to certain abnormal phenom¬ 
ena in the mental life of the individual, such 
as changes in the personality, losses of memory, 
or hysterical manifestations. On the body 
mechanism itself the emotions have a profound 
influence, producing changes in electrical resist¬ 
ance, in the pulse rate, stimulation or inhibition 
of glandular secretion or of the motor power of 
the gastro-intestinal tract, variations in the res¬ 
piration and in the tension of the muscles. 
Recent investigations would lead us to believe 
that these multitudinous psycho-physical and 
psycho-physiological phenomena are of central 
and not peripheral origin. The phenomena of 
the relation of certain test words to associations 
of an emotional character (the association tests) 
and the mechanism of the inhibition of thought 
in these experiments, are of such importance 
that their discussion will be left for another 


TESTING THE EMOTIONS 


79 


chapter, although here again it is emotional 
states, and not intellectual conditions, which 
determine the type of reaction. 

Wit and laughter may also be interpreted 
as emotional reactions and both have been ex¬ 
tensively investigated by Bergson ^ and Freud." 
According to the former anything which breaks 
away from the elasticity of living beings and 
becomes stiff, mechanical and stereotyped, or in 
other words becomes a caricature of life, tends 
to provoke laughter. Freud bases his theory 
of wit upon his well-known conceptions of the 
unconscious and finds in it many of the same 
mental mechanisms as occur in dreams. He 
divides wit, according to the reactions which it 
produces, into purposeful, or that which shows 
a definite aim, and harmless, or that in which 
no definite aim can be discovered. Concerning 
the mechanism of wit, it seems, according to 
Freud, that a foreconscious thought is left for 
a moment unguarded and thus becomes the 
object of an unconscious elaboration. Thus 
wit, like the dream, is an involuntary mental 
occurrence and brevity is common to both wit 
and dreams. In fact, “ brevity is the soul of 
wit.” This brevity is due to a process of con¬ 
densation and from this condensation mechan- 

* Henri Bergson, “Le Rire,” 1911. 

* S. Freud, “ Der Witz und sein Beziehung zum Unbewussten.” 


80 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

ism, arise many plays on words. Wit is a 
social product, whose aim is to acquire pleasure, 
and in wit there may often be detected an 
infantile type of thinking. An interesting con¬ 
firmation of Freud’s theory occurred in a case 
of automatic laughter which I had occasion to 
analyze. Here it could be shown that an un¬ 
conscious emotional complex expanded and 
became an impulsive motor reaction (laughter) 
which for the time being dominated the field 
of consciousness. Thus the laughter was the 
result of an unconscious repression. 


CHAPTER IV 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 

The association of ideas or the linking of 
ideas in consciousness has engaged the attention 
of psychologists from the days of the Greek 
philosophers up to the present time. The fact 
that a word or idea should immediately suggest 
a related word or idea is one of the peculiarities 
of the mechanism of thought, and on this pecu¬ 
liarity was based some of the older systems of 
the so-called associationist psychology. For 
years, however, the study of association remained 
. barren of practical results, but with the advent 
of precise instruments to measure the reaction 
time, with the investigations of the physiology 
of the reflexes, and the propagation of nerve 
impulses, the association of ideas became filled 
with a new interest. It is a matter of common 
observation that it is easier to remember rhymed 
poetry than blank verse or prose, and this is 
due not to the rhythm but in a great part 
to the association of rhyme. Many of the 

schemes used by schoolboys for remember- 

81 


82 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


ing historical dates or the sequence of rulers 
or presidents, is based upon the law of asso¬ 
ciation. 

In normal individuals, the association time is 
usually very short, but measurements of this 
time by modern electrical instruments have 
shown that it is not instantaneous, as was form¬ 
erly supposed. It takes time for an impulse 
to travel along a nerve path or for a sensory 
impulse from the eye or ear to reach the brain 
and call forth a related impulse. In a way, the 
association mechanism resembles certain physio¬ 
logical reflexes. It is only when instruments of 
accuracy are used, that the time for one idea 
to call forth a related idea can be measured. 
Therefore, before the advent of experimental 
psychology and physiology, the association of 
ideas was looked upon as a more or less mys¬ 
terious process, a function of a kind of a meta¬ 
physical consciousness. Investigations in nor¬ 
mal individuals and in certain abnormal mental 
states have shown, however, that the association 
mechanism is based upon well-deflned laws of 
body and mind, upon brain physiology and not 
upon metaphysical conceptions. Association, 
therefore, like the emotions, can be best ex¬ 
plained through physiological psychology. We 
will discuss the subject from this standpoint 
alone, giving only as much of the work on nor- 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 83 

mal associations as will enable the reader to 
understand the various abnormal associative 
processes. 

There is an intimate relationship between the 
psychology and physiology of the brain. There 
can be no mental process without a previous 
brain process. Precise measurements have 
shown that it takes a definite and appreciable 
length of time for nerve energy to be propa¬ 
gated, and even in the quickest of our associa¬ 
tions there is an interval of a large fraction 
of a second between one idea and another. 
Habit lessens this time interval; fatigue, al¬ 
cohol, and other drugs, and the presence of 
an emotional meaning connected with a certain 
word greatly increase this interval. This last 
factor, the inhibition or slowing of thought 
through emotional factors, is of great value 
in some of the analyses of abnormal psychol¬ 
ogy. To this factor, however, we will return 
later. 

Certain bundles of nerve fibres, or tracts in 
the brain, seem to be especially concerned with 
the processes of association, in the same way that 
certain parts of the brain are the centres for 
sight, smell, language, etc. Now in man these 
so-called association areas occupy a large portion 
of the cerebral hemispheres, and when we realize 
how all intellect seems based on association and 


84 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

associative memory, we have here a beautiful 
example of the relation of function to structure. 
The exact localization of these association areas 
in the brain has recently attracted a great deal 
of attention. For some of these centres, the 
evidence is certain; for others, it is still prob¬ 
lematical. After we eliminate the sensory or 
motor paths of the brain, and the centres for 
language and special senses, there still remains 
a large portion of what were formerly termed 
the “ silent areas.” Now these “ silent areas,” 
in the light of recent investigations, possess a 
function of great importance and interest, 
namely, association. 

In the development of the nervous system, 
the nerve tracts of the brain receive their cover¬ 
ing or myelin sheaths (called medullation) in 
different order and sequence. Those nerve 
tracts which will be used first by the new-born 
child, first become medullated, that is the sen¬ 
sory fibres, because the child makes use of its 
sensory organs before it uses its motor organs. 
When the child begins to walk, then the motor 
paths of the brain become medullated. Last of 
all, the association areas receive their myehn 
sheaths, because these subserve the highest func¬ 
tions of intelligence,—language and memory. 
In mental diseases associated with any degree of 
dementia or mental weakness, the association 



ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 85 

areas are nearly always found in a condition 
of degeneration. 

The materials of thought and association are 
largely the results of habit and training. As¬ 
sociation is due to the manner in which one 
elementary brain process may excite another ele¬ 
mentary brain process, which has taken place at 
a previous time. So we see that the processes of 
association are brain processes and its physio¬ 
logical law may be expressed as follows: When 
two elementary brain processes have been active 
together or in immediate succession, one of those, 
on recurring, tends to propagate its excitement 
into the other. Normal associations are due 
largely to the habits in which the nervous sys¬ 
tem has become “ set,” as it were. Associa¬ 
tions will not only show a subject’s mental 
make-up or his interests, but will also betray 
his hidden motives and desires and concealed 
facts in his experiences. Hence the value of 
the association method to test the intellectual 
capability of the subject or to lay bare his 
innermost feelings and secrets. For instance, 
let us take the word man.” To this 
word the scientist would probably associate 
the word “ vertebrate,” the physician, the 
word “ disease,” the minister, the word 
“ morality.” 

I had previously pointed out that the repro- 


86 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


duction of stimuli, experiences, or reactions is 
usually in the same order in which they are re¬ 
ceived. This psychological mechanism finds its 
physiological parallel in the phenomena of chain 
or sequence reflexes. According to Loeb and 
Sherrington, the crawling of an earthworm, in 
which the threshold of each succeeding reflex 
is lowered by the excitation just preceding its 
own, is a chain or sequence reflex of this kind. 
Association may be interpreted in part as a 
psychical chain reflex, for as soon as one ele¬ 
mentary brain process becomes started, it stimu¬ 
lates the next succeeding group, so that each 
process is reproduced in the order in which 
it originally occurred. Memory forms the high¬ 
est type of association. In fact, all memory, 
with the probable exception of certain scrappy 
automatisms which occur in some cases of 
functional amnesia, is associative memory. It 
is this associative memory which is responsible 
for the higher intellectual processes of man, 
for even in monkeys and the higher apes the 
associations are of a very elementary, simple 
type. 

What, then, is the value of associations in 
abnormal psychology; how are we to interpret 
the findings, and how are the tests carried out? 
It would lead us too far into technicalities to 
give the enormous mass of hterature which has 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 87 

recently been called forth by the association tests 
and therefore only the most important and prac¬ 
tical points will be briefly discussed. These 
technical methods have shown that the associa¬ 
tions cannot only reveal the normal mental 
make-up of an individual, but may also betray 
his abnormal mental make-up as well. In other 
words, the interpretation and study of a series 
of words used for the association tests in nor¬ 
mal individuals apply with equal force when we 
come to study certain diseases. When we give 
a subject a word and ask him to reply with the 
first idea which this test word suggests, it will 
be found that a definite time elapses between 
the test word and the reaction. This time, if 
measured with the chronoscope or the stop¬ 
watch, will be found to vary from the fraction 
of a second to several seconds. This could not 
be otherwise, if we remember the complicated 
circuit which the reaction takes. The spoken 
word is first heard by the ear, then carried to 
the brain; there it awakens or stimulates previ¬ 
ously stored-up brain processes which are re¬ 
lated to this word; then it reaches the language 
centre and awakens the image of the related 
word, and finally it is spoken by the subject. 
In reality the circuit and the brain process are 
far more complex than I have indicated. In 
any case it takes time for the impulses to travel 


88 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


along the nerves and tracts in the brain. As 
will be shown later, certain things may influence 
either the time, or the reaction, or both; the time 
may be normal, or shortened or lengthened, the 
reaction to the test word may be normal, pecu¬ 
liar, or- entirely lacking. The facts which 
determine any abnormality in association are 
many. 

Let us make the experiment somewhat more 
comphcated, as it is usually carried out in 
laboratories and in clinical investigations. A 
series of fifty to one hundred words is read off 
to the subject, care being taken that the words 
are ordinary and indifferent. In most cases, the 
suggested word will be found normal and the 
time reaction short. But supposing in the midst 
of this list we insert a few words that touch 
a “ sore spot,” as it were; that is, words relating 
to certain emotional experiences in the subject’s 
life. A peculiar thing will be found to occur. 
Whereas the reaction time for normal words 
was short, in the words having an emotional 
meaning the time will be found to have been 
considerably lengthened. A retardation or in¬ 
hibition of thought has taken place, if we wish 
to speak in psychological terms; or, if we wish to 
take a nomenclature from physiology, we say 
that the normal path of association has become 
blocked. What causes this retardation, this 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 89 

blocking, this interference with a normal reac¬ 
tion, and this alteration of the processes of 
thought? Evidently the test word has stimu¬ 
lated a dormant group of ideas or complexes 
which had an emotional meaning, and it is this 
emotional tone which has delayed the process 
of thought. A painful idea has been awakened 
by the test word and the subject’s efforts to 
suppress the painful idea, to keep it in the 
background of the mind, take a certain length 
of time. Hence the delayed time between the 
test word and the reaction word. While the 
intellectual status may determine the kind or 
type of association, yet the reaction time is in¬ 
fluenced by emotional and not by intellectual 
factors. 

Thus a response to a test word may show 
certain peculiarities called ‘‘ complex signs ” and 
the word which causes this disturbance is termed 
a “ complex indicator.” These complex signs 
are as follows— 

1. Unusually long reaction time. 

2. Strange reactions, errors or no reactions 
at all. 

3. Stereotyped repetition of the test word. 

4. Forgetfulness. 

5. Persistence of disturbance for the next 
or following association. 

6. Surprise at the stimulus word. 


90 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

7. Laughing at a reaction. (When a com¬ 
plex is struck the subject will often automati¬ 
cally laugh.) 

8. Superficial associations. 

The method is often valuable in the prelimi¬ 
naries of a psycho-analysis, in giving one hints 
concerning the patient’s emotional complex. 

Other abnormal phenomena may also take 
place in the association mechanism, such as 
flight of ideas, absence of reaction, automatic 
repetition of test words, indifferent reactions, 
etc. It would lead us too far into technicalities 
to enter into all these finer details, and, there¬ 
fore, we will limit our discussion, as far as pos¬ 
sible, to the delayed reaction time. The asso¬ 
ciations are influenced by the type of complexes, 
that is whether or not they have an emotional 
coloring. These complexes may cause an in¬ 
hibition of thought and so delay the reaction; 
they may completely arrest, temporarily at 
least, the normal mental activity and so cause 
an absence of reaction to the test word; they 
may cause indifferent reactions or finally only 
sound associations, such as rhyming and flight 
of ideas. As will be shown later, this latter is 
largely dependent upon a disorder of atten¬ 
tion. In order for a complex to produce the 
retardation of thought it must not only have 
an emotional coloring, but must be preserved in 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 


91 


the unconscious, although it may be’ dormant 
and suppressed. Subconscious complexes are 
incapable of causing any retardation in the 
association tests, although if identical words be 
used, these same words will be found capable 
of causing electrical reactions and modifications 
in the pulse rate. 

The use of the association method has thrown 
considerable light upon the delusions and hal¬ 
lucinations in dementia prsecox and also upon 
the dream life in both this disease and hysteria. 
When a test word strikes a particular experience 
that has been stored up, but remains dormant, 
immediately an abnormal reaction takes place, 
either retardation or refusal to co-operate or an 
indifferent reaction word. 

By means of this method we are able to 
prove that many insane ideas, delusions, hal¬ 
lucinations, and dreams take their origin in 
previous experiences, which were preserved in 
the unconscious as dormant complexes or mem¬ 
ories. Investigations along these lines by 
certain German investigators (Jung, Freud, 
Bleuler, and the Zurich school), have thrown 
an immense amount of light upon hysteria 
and upon the psychogenesis of dementia 
prsecox. 

The results and the value of the association 
method in hysteria are given in a psycho- 


92 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

analysis of a case of hysteria/ We will, there¬ 
fore, limit ourselves to a brief discussion of a 
case of dementia pr^ecox. Dementia prascox is 
a mental disease which usually occurs in ado¬ 
lescence and early youth, its chief characteristic 
being that, no matter what may be the character 
of the insane ideas or the abnormal activity, 
there is a termination in a peculiar and char¬ 
acteristic mental weakness. This mental weak¬ 
ness is primarily of the nature of an emotional 
deterioration or indifference, rather than any 
intellectual change. It is only within recent 
years that the disease has been fully recognized 
and only still more recently has the psychology 
of the disease found a fairly satisfaetory ex¬ 
planation. The psychological interpretation of 
dementia prsecox is certainly a healthy reaction 
from the vague theories of auto-intoxication and 
the barren results of pathological anatomy. 
Examinations of the brain in subjects who 
have died from this disease, have yielded noth¬ 
ing of importance. In no other disease, outside 
of hysteria, have purely psychological investiga¬ 
tions yielded data of so much importance. In 
the recent work of Jung,^ an attempt is made 
to give a logical explanation of the behavior 
and utterances in this disease, which were for- 

^ See Chapter IX: “The Analysis of the Mental Life.” 

*C. G. Jung: “The Psychology of Dementia Praecox,” 1909. 
(Translated by Peterson and Brill.) 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 93 

merly looked upon as strange and at random. 

In dementia prsecox, there is often a pecu¬ 
liar blocking of thought and a dissociation of 
the inner mechanism of will and action. For 
instance, in one case of dementia prsecox the 
subject replied to all the association test words 
by an indifferent “ I don’t know,” or by merely 
echoing the test word. He later explained these 
reactions by stating that he could not think of 
anything. It has also been shown in this dis¬ 
ease that it is the experiences of the subject pre¬ 
served in the mind as unconscious or dormant 
memories which cause the various hallucinations, 
delusions, insane ideas, and abnormal activities. 
These unconscious residuals have a distinct emo¬ 
tional coloring, and hence, when the association 
tests are used for analysis, words related to these 
complexes cause a disorder of the mechanism 
of association. This disorder may be either re¬ 
tardation, or mere repetition of the test word, 
or complete refusal to co-operate, all of which 
are manifest “ blockings ” of the mechanism of 
association. Of interest in dementia prsecox 
is the instinctive tendency to conceal these un¬ 
conscious complexes, leading to stupor, contrary 
actions and behavior and apparent emotional 
indifference and apathy. Thus the unconscious 
complexes, in dementia prsecox, the same as in 
dreams or in hysteria, are often symbolically 


94 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

I 

expressed. As Jung expresses “ Let the 
dreamer walk about and act like one awakened 
and we have the clinical picture of dementia 
prsecox.” 

The evidence seems to show that in dementia 
prsecox we are dealing with some form of men¬ 
tal dissociation. But why one form of mental 
dissociation should cause a curable hysteria 
and the other an incurable dementia prsecox, 
cannot be definitely answered at present. With¬ 
out entering into details, it might be briefly 
stated, that in hysteria the emotions are merely 
suppressed or detached, while in dementia 
prsecox the emotions are destroyed. Hence, on 
the one hand, we get the increased emotionalism 
in hysteria, and on the other hand, the decreased 
or even absent emotions in the subject of de¬ 
mentia prsecox. Further analysis by the pulse, 
electrical, and association tests, seems to show, 
however, that in dementia prsecox the emotional 
indifference is only superficial and that the 
emotions may be subconsciously active. The 
subjects, however, pay little or no attention to 
their submerged emotjons, while in hysteria, the 
opposite takes place. 

We are now prepared to study a series of 
associations in a case of dementia prsecox, and 
to show how the various phenomena of this 
particular case took their origin in the sub- 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 95 

ject’s previous experiences. These experiences 
remained conserved as dormant unconscious 
complexes or memories. It was these memories 
that caused the vivid hallucinations and the 
fantastic dream states. Words relating to these 
unconscious complexes or taken directly from 
them, greatly influenced the time and type of 
the associations. The retardation in many of 
the tests was due to the words relating to uncon¬ 
scious complexes, which had a strong emotional 
coloring, hence the blocking of thought with the 
consequent slowness of reaction. The uncon¬ 
scious complexes not only influenced the type 
and formation of the hallucinations and dreams, 
but they also were the factors in causing the 
inhibition of thought as shown by the associa¬ 
tion tests. Hence the complex had a two¬ 
fold disturbing action; on the formation of the 
insane ideas and on the retardation of thought 
as shown by the special tests. 

The patient was an intelligent young woman, 
thirty years of age. At the age of twenty- 
eight she went on a pleasure trip, and dur¬ 
ing her travels, she consulted three palmists who 
informed her that while on this trip she would 
meet the person who would eventually become 
her husband, although there would be consider¬ 
able trouble and delay. To a certain extent this 
occupied her mind and worried her, and while 


96 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

on her way home she became acquainted with a 
young professional man. Shortly afterward she 
began to have series of dreams, such as the 
hearing of pistol shots, of a certain person wear¬ 
ing a black necktie, at another time of a police' 
officer about to arrest her, that her father and 
mother were in prison for some terrible crime. 
Later other dreams followed, such as being 
on a sinking ship, or in a rowboat alone at 
night, or of travelling interminable distances on 
a railroad train. These dreams symbolized 
certain things to the patient; the dream of the 
black necktie meaning that the professional man 
had committed suicide, the sinking ship meant 
trouble, the rowboat signified her destiny. Fin¬ 
ally peculiar words that she had been unaccus¬ 
tomed to using would suddenly flash into her 
mind, such as “ tripod,” “ harlequin,” “ suicide,” 
“ Jezebel,” “ ineffable woe,” “ ineffable joy,” 
etc. To these words a symbolic meaning was 
also attached. Finally these words became hal¬ 
lucinatory in character and took the form of 
voices, and the patient became literally bom¬ 
barded by auditory hallucinations. In the 
series of associations which follow it will be 
noticed that long reaction times coincide with 
the words or ideas which formed either the 
complexes, the hallucinatory phenomena, the 
dreams, or the previous experiences. 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 


97 




Reaction 


Reaction 

Stimulus 

Reaction 

Time 

Stimulus 

Reaction 

Time 

Word 

Word 

( Seconds) 

Word 

Word (Seconds) 

Chair 

Frame 

4.8 

A ffinity 

Like 

4.2 

Tripod 

Three 

2.2 

Ring 

Round 

2.8 

Glass 

Square 

2.8 

Book 

Vellum 

2.6 

Black 

Darkness 

4. 

Police 

Uniform 

3.4 

House 

Home 

1.8 

Jezebel 

Wickedness 

4.8 

Harlequin 

Fool 

6.4 

Dress 

Gown 

3.8 

Ship 

Ship 

4. 

Prison 

Bars 

8. 

Heart 

Red 

6.2 

Joy 

Happiness 

2.8 


The slowness of reaction showed that the emo¬ 
tions aroused by certain test words were blocked, 
could not find a normal path of discharge. 
This was due to the fact that the test words 
aroused painful memories in the experiences of 
the subject, such as certain incidents in her life, 
her dreams, and her hallucinations and delu¬ 
sions. For instance such words as “ prison,” 
“ black,” or “ ship ” referred to the dreams and 
their symbolic interpretation; “harlequin” and 
“ Jezebel ” referred to the hallucinations. In 
this case also, the same test words caused an 
increase of the pulse rate. 

In certain other mental diseases the associa¬ 
tion of ideas may be disturbed along different 
lines. In dementia, the associations are very 
narrow and may be applied to mere mechanical 
repetitions of the test word. In experimental 
fatigue and hunger and after the ingestion of 
even moderate doses of alcohol the associative 


98 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

process is slowed. The most marked disturb¬ 
ance of association of ideas is found in mania.^ 
The chief characteristics of this mental disease 
are extreme restlessness and increased activity, 
loquacity, exaltation, and a marked disorder 
of attention, leading to rapid comments upon 
the surroundings and upon any new sense im¬ 
pressions. The disturbance of association in 
mania is expressed by the term flight of ideas. 
Its chief characteristics are jumping from one 
idea to another, usually by means of rhyming 
or sound associations, or in extreme cases, there 
may be an actual incoherence of ideas. It is 
not the apparent increased rapidity of associa¬ 
tion that leads to flight of ideas, because no 
matter how rapid may be the association time, 
it still may be rational. The flight of ideas 
is really due to a disorder of attention. When 
a normal person passes from one group of 
ideas to another, the tendency is to remain at¬ 
tentive to the first group, to keep the ideas in 
the foreground of the mind, and not allow the 
attention to be distracted by external occur¬ 
rences. In mania, however, just the opposite 
takes place. Here attention is lacking or much 
diminished, it dwells for a short time only on 
one idea, the subject is extremely fickle, dis- 

*The term mania is used as expressing the exalted phase of 
the periodic mental disease known as manic-depressive insanity. 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 99 

tracted by outward sense impressions, and turns 
to anything new with great avidity. Hence 
the jumping from one idea to another. 

For instance, a maniacal patient was given 
the word “ hot ” as an association test word. 
Now, in a normal individual, the reaction word 
would probably be “ cold ” or “ weather,” but 
here it would stop. But observe this patient’s 
string of associations. To the word “ hot ” he 
responded as follows—“ Weather, not cold, hot 
beans, hot times in war, heat ironing, that’s 
what women do, if more wood is wanted, fill 
the wood-box.” Another maniacal patient was 
given the word “ spider.” Here rhyming as¬ 
sociations took place, “ Ida, rider, spider, spy 
I, who do you spy, through my little eye.” 

Recently the application of the association 
tests for the determination of concealed facts 
in crime has attracted a great deal of attention. 
For this purpose the list of ordinary test words 
is loaded with special words pointing to the trend 
of suspicion. In reaction to these special words, 
there results either a refusal to co-operate, or a 
lengthening of the reaction time. The method 
is very promising of practical results, but only 
by the accumulation of further data in the 
future can we determine if we have here an 
infallible device to probe into hidden memories. 
If so, the psychological inquisition of the future 


100 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


will not consist of threats, tortures, and the 
rack, nor of the equally painful so-called “ third 
degree,” but the criminal will be brought face 
to face with the scientific psychologist. It has 
already been pointed out how words having an 
emotional meaning may slow the reaction time. 
Now this retardation may take place either 
because the words had something to do with the 
crime, or because the subject was afraid that the 
associated word which first came to his mind 
would betray him and, therefore, he makes an 
attempt to substitute a less dangerous word. 
But either of these mental processes, either 
substitution or the emotional reaction of a bad 
conscience, would cause a slowness in answering, 
and this retardation can easily be measured, 
either with a chronoscope or, what is just as 
’ accurate for all practical purposes, a stop¬ 
watch. Innocent, indifferent words would be 
given very quickly, as the subject would feel 
that he need not be on his guard, having nothing 
to conceal. Sometimes, on a suspicious word, 
the reaction may be an indifferent association, 
if the subject is clever, but the suppressed 
memory would linger in consciousness and be¬ 
tray itself in the following association. Also 
when suspicious words are used, the association 
suggested by this word will occasionally un¬ 
mask the subject. 


ANALYZING THE EMOTIONS 101 

The following is an example in a case of 
juvenile delinquency which came under per¬ 
sonal observation."^ Only the most striking 
reactions will be given. The patient, a girl of 
seventeen years of age, for several years had 
been cross and stubborn, and would frequently 
remain away from home. There was also some 
suspicion of certain irregularities, of disorderly 
conduct, and of frequenting cheap vaudeville 
entertainments. All this was absolutely denied 
by the patient. Owing to the manifest untruth 
and lack of sincerity in the patient’s attitude, 
an attempt was made to get at the concealed 
facts in the case by means of the association 
tests. 


Test Word 

Reaction Word 

Reaction Time 
(in seconds) 

Dark 

Night 

1. 

Square 

Four corners 

2. 

Hard 

Not bent 

3. 

Drink 

Water 

1. 

Bad 

Unconscious 

4. 

Lie 

Hasty 

9.4 

Street 

Walking 

6.4 

Sea 

Water 

0.4 

Untruth 

Spoken in haste 

9.4 

Bed 

Sleep 

2.4 

Deceit 

To speak against 

14.6 

Vaudeville 

Gayety 

13.6 

Conduct 

Don’t know 

16.4 

Sweet 

Candy 

1.4 

* “ The Mental Condition of Juvenile Delinquents,’ 

’ Psychological 

Clinic, Vol. I, 

No. 5, October 15, 1907. 



102 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

The lengthened reaction time to such test 
words as “ lie,” “ street,” “ untruth,” “ deceit,” 
“ vaudeville,” the refusal to co-operate when 
the word “ conduct ” was used, and the peculiar 
reaction of the word “ walking ” to the test 
word “ street,” or of the word “ gayety ” to 
“ vaudeville,” pointed strongly to purposely 
concealed facts. When the patient was directly 
accused of these matters, she broke down and 
confessed that she had been telling an untruth. 


CHAPTER V 


SLEEP 

Sleep has been called a mystery, and it is a 
mystery well-nigh inscrutable. The very multi¬ 
plicity of the theories on sleep shows how in¬ 
adequate they are to explain the phenomenon, 
which from the earliest dawn of history has 
puzzled savage and scientist alike. To primi¬ 
tive man or to the uneducated savage, there was 
something uncanny in this “ darkness and light 
that divided the course of time.” The outward 
resemblance of sleep to death only served to 
increase the mystery. 

The modern scientist has approached but 
little nearer to the final solution of the problem. 
Many theories have been proposed to explain 
sleep, from the earlier ideas that sleep is due 
to a lack of blood in the brain to the more recent 
biological and physiological conceptions. Each 
theory has its enthusiastic advocates and each 
can cite apparently unanswerable facts as a 
positive proof. In sleep, we seem to be dealing 
with definite alterations of the personality, but 
just how the waking personality falls into the 

103 


104 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

state we call sleep and how this latter again 
changes to the waking personality, is the great 
enigma. Yet this cycle occurs in one form or 
another throughout almost the entire organized 
world. 

As a preliminary, it will be of interest to 
briefly pass in review the various theories that 
have been propounded to explain sleep. These 
theories fall naturally into flve groups, namely 
physiological, histological, chemical, psychologi¬ 
cal, and biological. The pathological theories 
of sleep belong to a separate category and com¬ 
prise only the abnormal sleep states as manifes¬ 
tations of certain diseases of the nervous system, 
such as hysteria, epilepsy, somnambulism, nar¬ 
colepsy, and the African sleeping-sickness. How¬ 
ever, it is the more recent biological and physio¬ 
logical conceptions which have, in a measure, 
cleared the way for a fairly satisfactory, if not 
a final solution. Any theory of sleep must be 
based upon sound physiological data, because 
sleep is a physiological phenomenon occurring 
in everyday life and not the manifestation of a 
disease process. Sleep is a function of living 
matter, and is necessary for all living beings, 
at least for those organisms which possess a 
central nervous sj^stem. The periods of immo¬ 
bility and rest which are observed in the lower 
organisms are probably conditions strongly al- 


SLEEP 


105 


lied to sleep and out of which sleep phylogeneti- 
cally arose. It is to the nervous system, how¬ 
ever, particularly the brain, that attention must 
be directed in any attempt to solve the problem 
of sleep. 


Physiological Theories of Sleep 

Sleep is due to changes in the cerebral cir- 
ilation. A lack of blood in the brain causes 
what is known as cerebral anaemia. This cere¬ 
bral anaemia may be due to a dilatation of the 
blood-vessels of the skin, which causes a fall 
of blood pressure in the brain. Sleep naturally 
results, in the same way that a lack of blood in 
the brain causes that transitory loss of con¬ 
sciousness known as fainting. 

According to these circulatory theories of 
sleep, cerebral congestion, or an increased 
amount of blood in the brain, produces insomnia. 
Observations on exposed brains after the skull 
has been trephined for injuries, seem to bear out 
these circulatory theories on sleep. Mosso’s fa¬ 
mous observations in cases of this type, showed 
a cerebral anaemia during sleep. Yet strong 
pressure on the carotid arteries in the neck, for 
a short time, thus interfering with the passage 
of blood to the brain, causes a state of con¬ 
sciousness analogous to fainting, rather than 


106 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

genuine sleep. Tarchanoff showed that in pup¬ 
pies the brain becomes pale when the animals 
are asleep and that at the same time, it reacts 
less readily to electrical stimulation. Salmon 
has recently formulated an ingenious though 
unsatisfactory theory of sleep, based upon the 
functions of the pituitary body, a secretory 
gland which lies at the base of the brain. He 
points out the very marked relation between 
somnolence and pituitary tumors and therefore 
claims that sleep is due to a hypersecretion of 
the pituitary body and insomnia to a diminished 
secretion. There exists an analogy between the 
winter sleep of animals and our daily sleep, as 
this winter sleep is also due to the diminished 
secretory activity of the tissues. 


Histological Theories of Sleep 

These are the theories which explain sleep as 
being produced by certain movements which the 
nerve cell prolongations are supposed to pos¬ 
sess. These prolongations are technically 
known as the dendrites. All nerve cells possess 
dendrites which touch each other and by means 
of which nerve currents are supposed to be 
transmitted from one cell to another. Accord¬ 
ing to this theory these nerve currents are 
necessary for consciousness and when there is 


SLEEP 


107 


any break in these currents, that is, when 
the dendrites spontaneously grow shorter, so 
that they no longer come into contact with one 
another, sleep results. The theory is a fascinat¬ 
ing one and it has also been utilized to explain 
the mechanism of certain dissociations of con¬ 
sciousness, such as dreams, hysteria, and hyp¬ 
nosis. 


Chemical Theories of Sleep 

Even modern physiological chemistry has 
tried its hand in the interpretation of such a 
purely psychological mechanism as sleep. It 
supposes that poisons are elaborated during the 
day, as the result of muscular and nerve activity, 
that these poisons are narcotic (sleep produc¬ 
ing) in action and when they reach a certain 
amount, drowsiness, and then sleep, results. 
These poisons have a direct action upon the 
central nervous system, particularly the brain. 
In sleep, the poisons are no longer formed be¬ 
cause in this condition there is a minimum of 
nerve and muscle activity. These toxic sub¬ 
stances are eliminated during the night and 
when elimination is nearly complete, awaken¬ 
ing results. This cycle of self-poisoning of the 
nervous system is repeated day after day. It 
is really a kind of auto-intoxication. A modi¬ 
fication of this theory states that sleep is pro- 


108 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

duced by a lack of oxygen in the brain. An 
excess of carbonic gas is, therefore, formed and 
the somnolent effect of this gas is a fact well 
attested by experience, such as occurs in im¬ 
properly ventilated and crowded rooms. 

Psychological Theories of Sleep 

Sleep is an inhibition, a resting state of con¬ 
sciousness. Mental activity or consciousness is 
dependent upon peripheral incoming stimuli, 
and when these are absent, a lowering of men¬ 
tal activity follows and sleep results. Accord¬ 
ing to this theory, if all peripheral stimuli are 
cut out, sleep will naturally follow. When we 
attempt to sleep, we voluntarily cut off all dis¬ 
tracting external stimuli; we darken the room, 
lie quietly, stop all muscular activity, close the 
eyes, etc. In favor of this hypothesis are the 
observations on human subjects who have a 
general cutaneous anaesthesia and who fall 
asleep when sounds are excluded and the eyes 
are closed. Striimpell, for instance, reports the 
case of a sixteen-year-old subject with total 
anaesthesia of the skin to all stimuli, an absence 
of the muscular sense and of fatigue, no sense 
of taste or smell, blindness of the left eve and 
deafness of the right ear. If in this subject 
the right eye was bound and the left ear stopped, 
the brain was deprived of all stimuli from the 


SLEEP 


109 


external world and after a few minutes, the 
subject fell tightly asleep. Heubel showed, in 
experiments which were performed on animals, 
principally frogs and birds, that mental activity 
was dependent in great part on incoming periph¬ 
eral sensory stimuli; when these were absent, 
the intensity of consciousness tended to diminish 
and sleep resulted. He states for instance:— 
“ If the external causes of excitation are com¬ 
pletely and permanently withdrawn, there ap¬ 
pear, especially in birds, unmistakable signs of 
sleep. Their eyes become tightly and continu¬ 
ously closed, the respiration becomes regular, 
often surprisingly slow and the muscles relax.” 

Biological Theories of Sleep 

The interpretation of sleep as one of the 
essential life phenomena is the basis of the bi¬ 
ological conceptions as elaborated by Claparede, 
Sidis, and Coriat. In fact, Claparede inter¬ 
prets many abnormal psychic conditions from a 
purely biological standpoint. His biological 
theory of sleep has attracted considerable atten¬ 
tion.^ According to him, sleep is not due to 
fatigue because fatigue frequently produces 
insomnia. Sleep is a negative state, a cessation 
of all activity. It is a reaction of defence to 

» E. Claparede: “ Enquisse d’une Theorie Biologique du Som- 
meil .”—Archives de Psychologic, Vol. IV. 


no EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

protect the organism against fatigue, rather 
than a psychological process, the result of 
fatigue. It is an instinct; we sleep not because 
our nervous system is poisoned or exhausted, 
but because there is an inhibition of attention 
for the present situation, really the active devel¬ 
opment of disinterest. In fact, we tend to be¬ 
come drowsy and fall asleep when we become 
disinterested. He asks the very pertinent ques¬ 
tion—At what step in evolution did sleep first 
appear? and in reply he states, “ Sleep did not 
necessarily exist at all times; it is, in fact, a 
contingent phenomenon, and is not implied in 
the conception of life; the lower forms of animal 
life, microbes and infusoria, do not manifest 
any sleep. If sleep has developed, it is prob¬ 
ably due to the fact that those animals whose 
activity was broken by periods of repose or of 
immobility have been favored in the struggle 
for existence, for they have been enabled, thanks 
to the accumulation of energy, during these 
periods of immobility, to manifest in conse¬ 
quence a more intense activity. As to these 
periods of immobility, they are themselves de¬ 
rived from the function of inhibition of defence, 
which plays such a great role in the animal 
kingdom (simulation of death).” 

According to Tromner, sleep is not depend¬ 
ent upon fatigue and he asserts that sleep and 


SLEEP 


111 


hypnosis have much in common. Sleep is an 
active process of instinctive inhibition and he 
assumes on various theoretical grounds that the 
optic thalamus is the seat of this instinctive ac¬ 
tion. That there is no relation between fatigue 
and sleep is shown, in that infants, who are 
least liable to fatigue, sleep the greater part of 
the time. Boris Sidis ^ interprets sleep from 
the standpoint of the threshold of cell energy. 
These investigations showed that sleep is due in 
the main to the cutting out of all peripheral 
stimuli. Relaxation and not fixation of atten¬ 
tion is necessary for sleep, for this latter fre¬ 
quently produces insomnia. Suggestibility is 
absent in the sleep state. Three essentials are 
necessary for the production of sleep, namely 
monotony of sensory impressions, limitation of 
voluntary movements, and inhibition. Of these 
three, the monotony of sensory impressions is 
the most important factor. In going to sleep, 
there is always an intermediary subwaking or 
hypnoidal state. This subwaking state is pres¬ 
ent, not only in man, but in the lower animals, 
such as dogs and kittens. Like Claparede, Sidis 
also considers sleep from the evolutionary stand¬ 
point. Sleep, therefore, biologically considered, 
is a reaction of protoplasm. It is as much an 

* Boris Sidis: “An Experimental Study of Sleep .”—Journal 
Abnormal Psychology, Vol. Ill, N®. 1-3, 1908. 


112 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


instinct as sex or hunger. Sleep is normal, 
psychological, not an evidence of the pathologi¬ 
cal, the diseased. Sleeping and waking are 
merely different manifestations of normal life- 
processes. When the organism becomes fa¬ 
tigued as the result of continued stimulation, 
those stimuli which have exhausted themselves 
or ceased to act on the organism by reason of 
their monotony, drop out and are replaced by 
new ones, until the whole round of stimuli has 
been gone through. Then the organism ceases 
to respond to the stimuli and falls asleep. Or¬ 
ganisms, therefore, fall asleep when the thresh¬ 
old for stimulation rises, and waken when the 
threshold falls. 

Neither monotony of sensory impressions nor 
limitation of voluntary movements is necessary 
for sleep. Sleep likewise does not result from 
a fatigue of the organism by continued stimula¬ 
tion, but only if the actual stimulus be de¬ 
creased, either to zero or to the threshold of 
conscious perception. The motionless states 
produced in animals by sudden peripheral ex¬ 
citations are not sleep, but a form of hypnosis. 
If a stimulus is present, but just falls short of 
producing a sensation, then for the organism it 
is just as if no stimulus existed at all. It has 
been shown beyond a doubt, however, that sleep 
takes place when the peripheral sensations are 


SLEEP 


113 


cut off or greatly diminished. Now it is well 
known, that the activity of consciousness is 
maintained by these sensations, which pour in 
from the eyes, ears, muscles, and the afferent 
nerves of the skin. When these are cut off or 
reduced to a minimum, sleep results. The 
nervous system receives the active energies sup¬ 
plied to it by stimuli of all kinds and is merely 
a conduction path connecting peripheral organs 
with the center,—a receptive surface with an 
afferent organ in combination. The greatest 
mass of stimuli pouring into the brain comes 
from the muscles and it is for this reason that a 
diminution of muscle tonus (or tension) either 
accompanies or precedes the onset of sleep. 
Thus the problem of sleep becomes essentially a 
psycho-biological problem and seemed so prom¬ 
ising that I investigated the function of sleep 
from this standpoint.^ 

My experiments were performed on animals 
and also on a series of human subjects, in whom 
I could check my procedures and thus have the 
advantage of introspective evidence, a thing 
manifestly impossible in animals. The animal 
experiments on crayfish, frogs, and guinea pigs 
were undertaken merely to establish the nature 

^ Isador H. Coriat, “The Nature of Sleep .”—Journal Abnormal 
Psychology, Vol. 5, 1912. 

“ The Evolution of Sleep and Hypnosis.”— Ibid, VII, 2. 1912. 



114 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of motionless states in animals, in order to de¬ 
termine whether these were genuine sleep, hyp¬ 
nosis, or states of cerebral inhibition. Thus I was 
able to trace the mechanism of sleep from animals 
with a primitive nervous system, up to man. 

When a crayfish, frog, or guinea pig was 
thrown suddenly on its back and held in a firm 
position for a few minutes, it would remain 
motionless even in a strained and uncomfortable 
attitude for a prolonged period of time after 
the experimenter’s hold had been released. The 
entire body would be immobile, the limbs rigid, 
eyes widely opened, and the reflexes exagger¬ 
ated. The animal would not move on external 
stimulation, such as jarring of the table or the 
flashing of an electric light in the widely opened 
eyes. In other words the animals were cata¬ 
leptic, resembling deeply hypnotized human 
beings. There were no signs of genuine sleep; 
that is, relaxation of the limbs, closure of the 
eyes, and slow, regular respiration were absent. 
Thus, the interpretation of these motionless 
states in animals, as sleep, as had been done by 
other observers, was shown to be without suffi¬ 
cient foundation. 

Experiments on human subjects demon¬ 
strated that they fell asleep after listening for 
prolonged periods to monotonous auditory 
stimuli, but only if there was a concomitant 


SLEEP 


115 


state of muscular relaxation. That this sleep 
was genuine and not allied to hypnosis, was 
demonstrated by the fact, that some of these 
subjects were able to relate short dreams on 
awakening. Subjects also fell asleep without 
listening to monotonous stimuli if muscular re¬ 
laxation could be induced. Muscular tension, 
however, even of one limb, under like conditions 
of listening to monotonous stimuli, entirely in¬ 
hibited sleep. 

It was possible to measure the degree of mus¬ 
cular relaxation by a modification of an instru¬ 
ment called the capillary electrometer, both on 
subjects in whom sleep was experimentally 
produced and in already sleeping subjects after 
they had retired for the night. It was definitely 
shown by means of this instrument, that sleep 
and muscular relaxation were parallel phenom¬ 
ena, viz., in subjects gradually falling asleep, 
the muscular relaxation gradually diminished, 
while in subjects deeply asleep, the state of 
muscular relaxation was reduced to zero. With 
hypnotized subjects, however, the instrument 
showed no variation in muscular tension, the 
same as in the artificially produced motionless 
states in animals. 

Analyzing my series of experiments, it was 
found that listening to a monotonous sound 
stimulus tended to produce a drowsy state and 


116 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

finally sleep. Sleep also took place when the 
element of monotony was not used, thus demon¬ 
strating that this factor was unnecessary for 
the production of sleep. A limitation of vol¬ 
untary movements may thus produce sleep, but 
this limitation must be of the nature of a mus¬ 
cular relaxation and not a muscular tension. 
Further experiments with electrical currents 
demonstrated that sleep failed to result so long 
as the stimulus was felt. Only when the cur¬ 
rent was reduced to zero or when the lowest 
threshold of perception was reached, which for 
the subject was the same as zero, did sleep take 
place. Thus sleep was a reaction to stimuli and 
when, in conditions of muscular relaxation, 
stimuli ceased to pour into the brain and keep 
it active, sleep resulted. 

The dependence of sleep on muscular tonus 
is shown by the fact that when we “ fight ” 
against drowsiness we do so by voluntarily 
placing our muscles in a state of tension. 
When we allow ourselves to relax, sleep re¬ 
sults. Sometimes great fatigue tends to keep 
one awake, because the fatigue symptoms are 
localized in the muscles. Sleep is an instinct, 
an inhibition of muscular tension. Monotonous 
stimuli keep us awake by pouring themselves 
into the brain and keeping it active, and sleep 
can only take place if these stimuli are reduced 


SLEEP 


117 


to zero or to the threshold. Yawning before 
sleep is an effort to bring about muscular re¬ 
laxation. Thus muscular relaxation is a neces¬ 
sary condition for sleep in all the higher ani¬ 
mals. In the lower organisms sleep was prob¬ 
ably limited to motionless states of relaxation, 
which had all the characteristics of a simple, 
elementary instinct or tropism. Those organ¬ 
isms survived which possessed these relaxed re¬ 
actions to their greatest extent, and from these 
sleep arose. All motionless states in animals 
are not sleep, however, neither do they resemble 
sleep, but are probably a variety of hypnosis, as 
demonstrated by my experiments. 

These experiments on the nature of sleep 
and hypnosis suggested several other directions 
to which inquiry might be directed—namely, 

1. How did sleep evolve? 

2. What is the biological necessity for sleep? 

Although it has been noted that primitive, 

moving unicellular organisms, when observed 
for hours at a time, were unceasingly active and 
showed no motionless states, yet sleep must 
have arisen at some stage of evolution from 
these primitive organisms. Presumably those 
organisms survived which possessed these mo¬ 
tionless states to their greatest extent, and 
from these motionless states could probably be 
traced the phylogenetic origin of sleep. In the 



118 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


higher animals, however, that is, in those pos¬ 
sessing a complex nervous system, these motion¬ 
less states, as demonstrated by my experiments, 
were not sleep but a form of cerebral inhibition, 
a genuine hypnosis. Furthermore, the animals 
experimented upon possessed genuine spontane¬ 
ous sleep states, whereas the motionless states 
induced in them were artificial and experimental. 

In the lower organisms these motionless states 
are not intelligent reactions, but probably blind 
mechanisms, and we must therefore not allow 
the interpretation of such phenomena to lead 
us into anthropomorphism. Neither can they 
be said to arise from fatigue, because such states 
may be observed in organisms which have not 
been subjected to stimuli that would lead to 
fatigue. Lower organisms, however, are very 
sensitive to light, but whether this influence to 
light is a chemical or a mechanical phenomenon 
cannot be discussed at present. For instance, 
many motile forms collect in regions of a given 
light intensity, some orient themselves towards 
the source of light and others away from it into 
shadows or where the light is diminished. We 
are dealing here with a process variously termed 
heliotropism or phototaxis.^ These light re- 

^ On the various tropisras and the reactions of organisms to 
light, and the interpretation of these phenomena from the stand¬ 
point of comparative psychology, see the publications of Loeb, 
Pieron, Bohn, Jennings, Verworn, Claparede, and Mast. 


SLEEP 


119 


actions may be decidedly rhythmic in character 
and because they usually result from sudden 
changes in the intensity of light, they seem 
compulsory and mechanical. It has been found, 
for instance, that a sudden increase in the 
intensity of light will cause restlessness in earth 
worms and fresh water planarians. Diminution 
of the intensity of light inhibits these restless 
reactions and causes the creature to come to 
rest, or if such a creature goes from a light 
area to a dark one its activity becomes reduced 
to a minimum, it becomes motionless and seems 
to fall asleep. 

It seems probable that out of these periods 
of immobility and rest sleep arose. Light is a 
distance receptor and the activity of these or¬ 
ganisms ceased when these particular receptors 
failed to throw its nerve elements into activity. 
The same mechanism probably takes place in 
the sleep of man and the higher animals from 
the inhibition of distance receptors. If sleep is 
an instinct, it was not so in the primitive 
organisms, but in these creatures it was a 
tropism, a mechanical or chemical necessity for 
repose under conditions where light was absent. 
From this tropism-like reaction, sleep arose, 
a veritable impulse of living matter to higher 
and higher rhythmic activities, motility on the 

one hand, with its freedom of action and the 

« 


120 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


consequent development of the nervous system, 
periodic immobility on the other, in the effort 
to protect this nervous system from the per¬ 
nicious effects of over-activity. Thus those or¬ 
ganisms which showed these rhythmic reactions 
of immobility and repair were those which sur¬ 
vived in the biological struggle for existence. 

Let us investigate these complex reactions to 
light more closely. Sometimes instead of at¬ 
taining a definite axial position or orientation 
to the source of stimulation, the organism as a 
whole will move from light to shadow or vice 
versa. Whether or not these reactions are 
adaptive or mere mechanical automatisms is one 
of the most important questions of comparative 
psychology. Probably the phenomenon, at 
least in the more primitive organisms, is not 
psychic, the light in these cases acting as a mere 
directive stimulus. The fact that in brainless 
planarians can be demonstrated the same sen¬ 
sitiveness to light, but that the reaction time 
to arrive at immobility is longer, speaks in 
favor of the mechanistic hypothesis. 

Histological investigations on planaria and 
earth worms seem to indicate that the photo¬ 
sensitive elements are distributed over the body 
surface. That the reaction to light is a me¬ 
chanical or a chemical response without the 
involvement of consciousness or perception, a 


SLEEP 


121 


mere mechanism, is demonstrated by the fact 
that brainless organisms become motionless 
when the light intensity is suddenly reduced, 
or what amounts to the same thing, when 
shadows are suddenly thrown over the bodies 
of the creatures. These reactions to shadows 
seem to be defence reactions, because a shadow 
would naturally herald the approach of an 
enemy. Then the organism becomes motion¬ 
less, a condition under which it would be 
less likely to be perceived. Analogous condi¬ 
tions are sometimes found in the higher ani¬ 
mals, namely, simulation of death, but here 
the defence reaction is intellectual and not 
mechanistic. Thus these latter reactions are 
in a general way adaptive and serve a purpose 
in not only protecting the creature from ex¬ 
ternal influences, but likewise have a reparative 
action. 

Sleep, therefore, in these lower organisms 
seems a mere rest state, a negative heliotropic 
reaction, because of the poverty of the creature 
in receptor organs. As the animal evolved, as 
the spinal cord became a complicated reflex 
mechanism and the brain the dominant organ 
of consciousness, the various receptors became 
more numerous and complicated, and parallel 
with this there arose rhythmic states of activity 
alternating with rest or sleep. 


122 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


It is well known that we cannot get along 
without sleep and so the important question 
arises—why is sleep biologically necessary ? 
Genuine sleep only exists in organisms with a 
developed nervous system, and it has been 
shown that the motionless states in lowly or¬ 
ganisms, when in shadows or in darkness, are 
not sleep. Sleep also seems to be due to a 
cessation of activity of the receptor organs 
and this in turn causes a diminished activity of 
the central nervous system. In sleep, the brain 
and spinal cord alone seem to be the seats of 
diminished activity, for the body metabolism 
during sleep does not differ much from that of 
the waking state. Sleep is an organic need, 
in the same way that hunger is an organic need. 
The effect of complete sleeplessness, as shown 
by experimental evidence, is to cause severe 
changes in the nerve cells. Therefore, the ac¬ 
tivity of the nerve cells furnishes the key to 
sleep. The Nissl bodies (or granules) of the 
nerve cells accumulate during repose and dis¬ 
appear in activity, particularly under condi¬ 
tions of fatigue. In the brains of chickens and 
dogs which have been suddenly killed during 
sleep there has been found an increase of the 
Nissl bodies. This substance, therefore, ac¬ 
cumulates in the nerve cells during their func¬ 
tional inactivity, when the sensory stimuli pour- 



SLEEP 


123 


ing into these cells from without are greatly 
diminished. Normal nerve cells, or nerve cells 
in a state of rest, show these Nissl bodies with 
great clearness. It is only in the fatigued cell 
or the cell which has been poisoned by toxic 
substances or through the influence of increased 
temperature in fever, that these bodies are dis¬ 
integrated and in many cases completely dis¬ 
appear, giving the cell a washed-out appearance 
(chromatolysis). Therefore, sleep is a mechan¬ 
ism for the repair of nerve elements which have 
become disintegrated from the bombardment of 
stimuli received by the various surface receptors 
and receptor organs of the special senses. Those 
organisms which by reason of rest and immobility 
when they went into darkness or shadows, showed 
the greatest repair, were the very organisms 
which survived in the evolutionary struggle and 
sleep evolved out of these motionless states. 
This reparative power is absolute, for no matter 
how great the fatigue or long the insomnia, only 
a few hours of complete sleep are necessary as 
demonstrated by some exact experiments on the 
loss of sleep in man. 

In ordinary sleep, the eyelids are lowered, 
and a position is assumed by the sleeper which 
tends to a relaxation of all the voluntary mus¬ 
cles. Certain changes take place in the pulse 
and respiration, the blood-pressure falls, the 


124, EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

muscles become relaxed, the threshold of con¬ 
sciousness becomes very low. The reflexes are 
diminished or may entirely disappear. The 
restorative and refreshing effect of natural 
sleep upon the tired nervous system is a fact 
well attested by everyday experience. A pro¬ 
found sleep is refreshing; a broken sleep, even 
in snatches that are profound, or lying in a 
half-sleeping state, such as frequently occurs in 
insomnia, fails to restore the fatigued organism. 
But even the pernicious effects of a complete 
insomnia are completely balanced by a few 
hours of profound sleep, as has been shown by 
certain experiments on the loss^f sleep. Sleep 
rests and refreshes one because of the muscular 
immobility and relaxation during sleep, the 
internal organs become less active, the nerv¬ 
ous system rests, there is a decided lowering of 
mental tension. In other words, during nor¬ 
mal sleep, there is a distinct reparative 
action. 

What happens if the body is deprived of 
sleep? We will consider this question under 
two heads:—the complete loss of sleep from 
an experimental standpoint and the involuntary 
partial sleeplessness known as insomnia. It 
is well known that absolute loss of sleep has a 
very pernicious, sometimes even a fatal effect 
upon the organism. In man, however, even the 


SLEEP 


125 


severest types of insomnia complained of by 
patients who are sufferers from some form of 
nervous or mental disease, are never absolute 
sleeplessness. In China and during the In¬ 
quisition in Europe, forced deprivation of sleep 
was not only a form of torture, but also was 
used as a form of capital punishment. 

Manaceine’s experiments on young puppies 
showed that the animals suffered more from 
loss of sleep than from deprivation of food. 
When the animals were absolutely deprived of 
sleep from periods varying from 96 to 120 
hours, the result was invariably fatal, even if 
sufficient food were given during this interval. 
She concludes from her experiments, that sleep 
is even more necessary to animals endowed with 
consciousness, than food. In animals which 
have been starved to death, but few changes 
can be found in the brain, while in animals 
which died of enforced insomnia, the most pro¬ 
found and irreparable changes occurred, such 
as capillary hemorrhage and fatty alterations 
in the nerve cells. The experimental loss of 
sleep, as applied to man, was carried out in 
a very systematic manner by Professor Pat¬ 
rick and Dr. J. A. Gilbert, of the University 
of lowa.^ This was the first time that such 

^ G. T. W. Patrick and J. A. Gilbert: “The Effect of the Loss 
of Sleep .”—Psychological Review, September, 1896. 




126 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

experiments were carried out on man, previous 
investigations having been limited to dogs. The 
subjects were kept awake for about ninety 
hours and a series of psychological tests com¬ 
prising reaction time, motor ability, memory, 
attention, etc., were made at six hour intervals. 
In one of the subjects, during the second night, 
hallucinations of sight developed; the air seemed 
full of colored particles which appeared like 
gnats and were in constant dancing motion. In 
all the subjects, memory became very defective 
and the power of attention was greatly lowered. 
After the experiments were finished, sleep 
brought about a complete restoration, in about 
one-sixth to one-third of the time of the en¬ 
forced insomnia. 

The development of hallucinations in the 
above experiments is of interest. One of my 
cases of hysterical insomnia was constantly trou¬ 
bled by grimacing faces; another case of pro¬ 
tracted sleeplessness would see a panorama of 
animals just as he dozed off, at other times he 
would hear a voice constantly repeating “ Let 
down the jib.” All these sense deceptions 
occurred in the half-sleeping condition, never 
when the subject was fully awake or fully 
asleep. 

Ordinary insomnia is a very common com¬ 
plaint. One of the most common causes is 


SLEEP 


127 


physical pain. It also occurs in many forms 
of nervous diseases, particularly neurasthenia 
In this insomnia of neurasthenia, the subject is 
frequently in a half-waking and half-sleeping 
condition, with a hazy state of consciousness and 
limitation of muscular activity. Or sleep may 
be secured in snatches, but the slightest noise 
awakens the sleeper. Therefore, in spite of 
their statements, these individuals never suffer 
from complete insomnia; they sleep more than 
they realize. Extreme physical exhaustion 
alone may produce insomnia, a proof that sleep 
is not absolutely dependent on exhaustion of the 
nerve centres. Sleeplessness may also be due 
to an emotional shock, as in certain cases of 
hysterical insomnia. For instance, a patient 
became greatly frightened by an insane woman 
entering her store and throwing an entire box 
of lighted matches among some paper. The 
patient immediately became greatly agitated, 
began to dream of the episode at night, and 
one week later, an insomnia developed, which 
continued for five years, up to the time she 
came under observation. 

Sometimes insomnia may be due to the de¬ 
velopment of a fixed idea that sleep is impos¬ 
sible. One patient said, “ I cannot get it out 
of my skull that I am not going to sleep.” 
Janet had studied in great detail a case in which 


128 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

the sleeplessness was due to a fixed idea/ In 
this case, the patient developed a severe attack 
of typhoid fever four months after the death of 
her child. During convalescence from this ill¬ 
ness, she suffered from an almost corrtinual 
visual hallucination of her dead child, particu¬ 
larly at night. After this sleeplessness de¬ 
veloped, and when she first came under Janet’s 
observation, the patient claimed that she had 
not slept a wink for two years. This almost 
complete loss of sleep was verified by careful 
observation. During the day she complained 
of fatigue, and the facial expression was that 
of one half asleep. Drugs failed to induce 
sleep; hypnosis produced only light states of 
short duration, in which the patient would 
awaken suddenly, with an expression of terror. 
At night also, she would go into a half-drowsy 
condition and awaken suddenly, much terrified, 
saying that she had had a bad dream, but which 
was only vaguely remembered on awakening. 
When questioned during her somnolent state, it 
developed that the so-called dream consisted of 
an hallucination of her dead child. The insomnia 
was due to the fact that the hallucination de¬ 
veloped immediately after the somnolent con¬ 
dition took place; the patient would then become 

^ Pierre Janet: “ Nevrose et Id^es Fixes,” Vol. I, pp. 354-374. 
(Chapter on “ Insomnie par Id6e Fixe Subconsciente.”) 


SLEEP 


129 


terrified and waken. Here was clearly a case 
of insomnia due to a subconscious fixed idea. 

The depth of sleep is variable. We have the 
lighter subwaking states in which consciousness 
is almost perfectly preserved, the deeper somno¬ 
lent conditions in which dreams occur, and 
finally the deepest grades of sleep, in which 
consciousness is reduced to such a low threshold 
that it may be considered as being almost en¬ 
tirely obliterated. In these somnolent states 
the sense of the lapse of time is only partially 
obliterated, in deep sleep completely so; we may 
have slept for hours but on awakening we have 
the illusion that it has been only a few minutes. 
Sleep is most profound in the early part of the 
night or within the first half-hour after falling 
asleep, and it becomes more shallow during the 
early morning hours. In some experiments 
with the capillary electrometer on sleeping sub¬ 
jects, it was found that the greatest depth of 
sleep was reached in about an hour and that 
this period corresponded with the greatest de¬ 
gree of muscular relaxation. It is of interest 
to note that it is just during these early morn¬ 
ing hours when sleep is lightest, that dreams 
are most apt to occur. The depth of sleep is 
measured either by the height from which a 
metallic ball must be dropped to awaken the 
sleeper or by the intensity of an electric cur- 


130 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

rent from an induction coil. However, if there 
is an element of expectation, a very slight noise 
will awaken the sleeper, as in the case of a 
sleeping mother being awakened by a slight 
movement of her child. 

This subwaking state to which we have sev¬ 
eral times alluded, where the individual hovers 
between sleep and waking, is of great practical 
and scientific interest. When it occurs spon¬ 
taneously, it is technically known as the hyp¬ 
nagogic state; when it is experimentally pro¬ 
duced by listening to a monotonous sound 
stimulus, while the individual is in a state of 
muscular relaxation with limitation of volun¬ 
tary movements, it is called the hypnoidal con¬ 
dition (Sidis), or the state of induced or experi¬ 
mental distraction (Coriat). The spontaneous 
hypnagogic state may be only momentary in 
duration or it may last for fifteen minutes or 
more. It occurs just as one is falling asleep 
or as one is awakening from slumber. It ap¬ 
pears that we never go to sleep or waken sud¬ 
denly. There always intervenes this hypna¬ 
gogic state between sleep on one side and 
awakening on the other, a state bordering on 
hypnosis, really a natural hypnotic state, par¬ 
ticularly when it occurs just before the individ¬ 
ual falls asleep. When sleep takes place, how¬ 
ever, the relation of sleep to hypnosis ceases. 


SLEEP 


131 


This hypnagogic state occurs in all individuals 
and is markedly protracted in insomnia, par¬ 
ticularly in those subjects who complain of 
absolute loss of sleep. In this hypnagogic state, 
many peculiar psychic and motor phenomena 
may appear, and there is also obtained, as in 
real hypnosis, a condition of increased suggesti¬ 
bility, so that it possesses a certain therapeutic 
value. 

We will first consider a condition of muscu¬ 
lar activity which is peculiar to the hypnagogic 
state. It is well known that even on being 
suddenly awakened from a deep sleep, full con¬ 
sciousness is not immediately regained. Com¬ 
plete consciousness is reached only after pass¬ 
ing through this intermediary hypnagogic state. 
In this state, there is sometimes an extreme 
difficulty in opening the eyelids, at other times 
a complete inability to move the limbs. After a 
time, however, and by continued effort of the 
will, the eyes can be opened or the limbs moved. 
When this point has been attained, conscious¬ 
ness has become completely restored and the 
hypnagogic state has entirely disappeared. 
Now this transitory paralysis of the limbs and 
eyes occurs frequently in normal individuals, 
but is only momentary. Sometimes, however, 
the phenomenon either occurs frequently or is 
greatly prolonged. Under both these condi- 


132 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

tions we are dealing with what I have called 
nocturnal paralysis.^ When this paralysis is 
frequent or unduly prolonged, it becomes a 
genuine functional nervous disorder. In one of 
my cases, this inability to move the limbs lasted 
for fifteen minutes. A brief report of a case 
which came under personal observation will il¬ 
lustrate the matter more clearly than any de¬ 
scription. It refers to a patient in whom these 
distressing attacks of nocturnal paralysis had 
pers-'sted for a number of years. After a 
sound sleep he would awaken suddenly, know 
where he was and who he was, but could not 
recall his name. Therefore, consciousness was 
not completely clear, a prominent characteristic 
of the hypnagogic state. In the attack the eyes 
were closed and the limbs rigid. He was unable 
to open the eyes, -to move the limbs, or to cry 
out. The duration of the individual attacks 
averaged about three minutes and they occurred 
about once a week. In another subject the 
condition of nocturnal paralysis was vividly 
described as “ I feel like a doll whose eyes can 
be opened but who cannot move the limbs.” 

The condition in all these cases is only a dis- 


^ “ Nocturnal Paralysis .”—Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 
Vol. CLVII, No. 2, July 11, 1907. (“Some Further Studies on 
Nocturnal Paralysis,” Ibid., Vol. CLVII, No. 23j, December 5, 
1907.) 


SLEEP 


133 


sociation of consciousness reacting most strongly 
on the motor mechanism. It bears no relation 
to epilepsy, as one writer would lead us to be¬ 
lieve. Neither does sudden awakening from 
sound sleep bear any relation to the disorder, 
for in some personal experiments on sleeping 
animals which were suddenly awakened by a 
loud noise, not even a temporary muscular 
rigidity took place. 

Other peculiar phenomena occur in this hyp¬ 
nagogic state. Hallucinations of hearing may 
take place, as in the case of the patient cited 
above, who heard a voice repeating, “ Lower the 
jib/^ Sometimes there are heard loud sounds 
like a gong or a piece of falling metal, and the 
half-sleeping subject is suddenly awakened by 
these sens^ deceptions. Occasionally there are 
shock-like startings of the body or a sensation as 
if falling. A condition called catalepsy may 
also arise, in which the limbs can be molded 
like a piece of lead pipe and kept in a strained 
position for some time, without any apparent 
sense of fatigue. Horrible dreams may take 
place with a sense of great fear, as in the night 
terrors of children. Occasionally, the hallucina¬ 
tions are those of touch, either a light touch or a 
sensation as if we were gripped in a vise. When 
this latter occurs, there is usually associated a 
terrifying dream with great fear and a sense of 


134 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

impending suffocation or death. This is the so- 
called nightmare. In the case of a woman, there 
arose a sense of an awful calamity about to 
overtake the patient; a deformed man would 
seem to spring on her, and she would think, 
“ It has overtaken me, this is the end of all.” 
Then she would cry out and the scream would 
awaken her. In another case the patient felt 
as if she were grasping something, a pencil or 
a person’s wrist; sometimes the sensation would 
be as if the fingers and toes were swelling to the 
bursting point. These nightmares have also 
been interpreted as nocturnal states of anxiety, 
based upon certain repressed sexual conflicts. 
The phenomena of nightmare, as shown by 
Ernest Jones, explain the mediaeval theory of 
a fiend who sits upon one’s bosom and hinders 
respiration. 

These hypnagogic hallucinations have been 
utilized with great imaginative effectiveness by 
Guy de Maupassant in his description of a 
nightmare. In his novelette “ Le Horla ” he 
describes the development of an incipient men¬ 
tal disease. The sufferer in question was a 
victim of insomnia and believed that he was 
pursued and haunted by an imaginary being. 
Then in terribly laconic sentences, the author 
gives us a most vivid description of the follow¬ 
ing condition, which is really a hypnagogic hal- 


SLEEP 


135 


lucination, a kind of a night terror. “ Then I 
lay down and waited for sleep as one waits an 
execution. . . . My heart beat and my legs 
trembled; my entire body started in the warmth 
of the sheets, up to the moment when I sud¬ 
denly fell asleep, as one falls into an abyss of 
stagnant water when dreaming. ... I slept— 
a long time—two or three hours—then a dream 
—no, a nightmare took hold of me. I felt that 
I was lying down and that I was asleep—I felt 
it and saw it—and I also had the feeling that 
some one approached me, looked at me, touched 
me, mounted on my bed, knelt on my chest, 
took my neck between his hands and squeezed— 
with all his force to strangle me. I struggled, 
bound by this atrocious power. ... I tried to 
cry out—but was unable to;—I tried to move— 
I was unable to; I tried with fearful efforts, 
panting for breath, to turn, to throw off this 
Being who crushed and stifled me—I was un¬ 
able to. And suddenly I awoke, covered with 
perspiration. I lit a candle. I was alone.’’ 

There are a number of conditions which out¬ 
wardly resemble sleep, yet are distinct from it. 
The so-called African sleeping-sickness, which 
occurs with the greatest frequency in the region 
around the Congo River, is a condition of 
gradually increasing stupor, which terminates 
in death. It is caused by a micro-organism be- • 






136 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

longing to the Protozoon group, which is found 
in the blood and central nervous system, and is 
transmitted by a certain African fly. A morbid 
disposition to sleep, coming on in sudden at¬ 
tacks, and characterized either by mere drowsi¬ 
ness or complete unconsciousness, is sometimes 
seen in hysteria and particularly in epilepsy. 
This condition is called narcolepsy and the at¬ 
tacks are designated as narcoleptic attacks. A 
form of stupor, outwardly resembling sleep, 
is seen in some forms of mental disease, particu¬ 
larly adolescent insanity. The sleep of anes¬ 
thetics, such as ether or chloroform, is due to 
the direct chemical action of volatile drugs 
upon the brain. Here the analogy with sleep 
ends, because the depth of unconsciousness pro¬ 
duced by these anesthetics is much greater than 
in normal sleep, as shown by the complete in¬ 
sensibility to pain. It must be admitted, how¬ 
ever, that before ether or chloroform anesthesia 
becomes complete, there is always a preceding 
semi-drowsy state, the same as occurs just be¬ 
fore normal sleep. 

Hypnosis only outwardly resembles normal 
sleep. The relation of sleep to hypnosis will 
be discussed in the chapter relating to this lat¬ 
ter condition. Sleep-walking or somnambulism, 
in which many complicated and seemingly nat¬ 
ural acts are executed with a loss of memory 


SLEEP 


137 


for these acts, occurs not only in the disease 
hysteria, but also in normal individuals. Som¬ 
nambulism, however, is not sleep, but a special 
mental state arising out of sleep through a 
definite mechanism. It may assume various 
types, either the ordinary form of sleep-walking 
or may develop to the high degree of actual 
changes in the personality. In both instances, 
it is probably a form of mental dissociation. 
The amnesia is only an apparent one, as the 
memory may be recovered by appropriate 
methods. In one case of somnambulism, it was 
possible to restore the memory for all the com¬ 
plex acts of the period, although this period 
was of an hour’s duration.^ 

^ For a complete discussion of somnambulism and its psycho¬ 
analytic application, see my book, “ The Hysteria of Lady 
Macbeth,” New York—1912. (Particularly Chapter 11.) 


CHAPTER VI 


DREAMS 

Dreaming, like sleeping, is one of the mys¬ 
teries of our psychic life. For centuries, dreams 
have had a peculiar fascination for man. The 
world of dreams, because it was so distorted 
and so fantastic, has been interpreted as having 
an entirely different significance from the wak¬ 
ing world. The occult significance of dreams 
has given another coloring to literature, folk¬ 
lore, and even religion. But while the ancients 
were particularly concerned with the prophetic 
nature of dreams, the modern investigator has 
busied himself in an attempt to fathom out the 
psychological mechanism of “ the stuff that 
dreams are made of.” 

In this chapter we will discuss the subject of 
dreams from the purely psychological stand¬ 
point, as manifestations of certain forms of dis¬ 
sociations of consciousness and of unconscious 
wishes. We will leave untouched, as foreign to 
our subject, the statistics of dreams or of their 
interpretation from the standpoint of symbol¬ 
ism, prophecy, telepathy, atavism, or premoni- 

138 


DREAMS 


139 


tions of the future. These latter aspects be¬ 
long more strictly to the field of psychical re¬ 
search, than to that of abnormal psychology, 
and though many remarkable dream experiences 
have been collected, the effort to establish a 
supernormal basis has not been successful. The 
attempts to interpret the underlying mechan¬ 
ism of dreams are recent. Modern science has 
stripped much of the cloak of mystery from 
dreams and laid bare to critical view the cold, 
dry facts. These facts in themselves are just 
as interesting as any supernormal interpreta¬ 
tions, and what is more to the point, are more 
valuable. , 

The modern investigations of dreams have 
assumed several distinct aspects. In order that 
the reader may have a clear view of the entire 
field, the following summary of these investiga¬ 
tions may be made: 

1. Investigations of dreams from the super¬ 
normal standpoint, what is generally known as 
the field of psychical research just referred to. 

2. The study of dreams from the purely 
statistical standpoint, as in the investigations of 
Sante de Sanctis and Miss Calkins and her 
pupils. 

In both of these publications the method 
used was that of introspection, the dreamer 
being asked to record his dream immediately on 


140 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

awakening. Miss Calkins investigated the 
dreams of normal persons. She found that 
dreams occurred usually during the light morn¬ 
ing sleep and that there was a very close con¬ 
nection between dreaming and the experiences 
of waking life. Illusions of memory and dis¬ 
tortions of facts, and of the time element were 
quite frequent. She divided dreams into two 
types—the presentation type, or those occasioned 
or accompanied by peripheral excitation, and 
the representation type, those of purely central 
or cerebral origin. The largest number of 
dreams were visual in nature, then followed in 
order, auditory, touch, taste, and olfactory 
dreams. As our visual apparatus is most active 
during the waking state, so visual dreams are 
the most frequent, while pure auditory dreams 
occur frequently in musicians. 

Sante de Sanctis not only studied the nor¬ 
mal dreams in children, adults, and the aged, 
but also the dreams of criminals and animals, 
the insane and in certain nervous diseases, such 
as hysteria, epilepsy, neurasthenia. He con¬ 
cludes that even animals and very young chil¬ 
dren dream, and that the dreams of old people 
are less vivid than in adults. These dreams of 
the aged tend to disappear quickly on awaken¬ 
ing, in harmony with the weakness of memory 
for recent events in old age. In hysteria the 


DREAMS 


141 


dreams are very intense and have a strong emo¬ 
tional coloring. In epilepsy the dreams are less 
complex than in hysteria; neurasthenics dream 
frequently, the dreams resembling those of hys¬ 
teria, but are less intense and not so well re¬ 
called on awakening. The insane frequently 
dream of their hallucinations and delusions. 

3. The purely psychological researches of the 
mechanism of dreams, such as the publications 
of Freud ^ and Tissie ^ and Mourly Void® and 
the investigations of the content of dream con¬ 
sciousness, as in the dreams of the blind.^ Void’s 
investigations have led him to believe that cu¬ 
taneous or motor stimuli a're the most frequent 
causes of dreams and that frequently childhood 
memories are interwoven in the dream life. 

4. The interpretations of dreams from the 
standpoint of dissociated mental states, as in 
multiple personality, functional amnesia, and 
the dream-like hallucinations resulting from the 
action of certain toxic drugs, such as alcohol, 
opium, and hashish. Part of these belong to 
purely scientific literature, as in the modern 
studies of dissociations of consciousness, and 
part to the dream-hallucinations of certain 

^ Sigm. Freud: “ Die Traumdeutung,” 1909. 

® Ph. Tissie: “Les Reves,” 1890. 

• J. Mourly Void: “ Ueber den Traum,” 1910. 

* J. Jastrow: “The Dreams of the Blind.” (In “Fact and 
Fable in Psychology,” 1900.) 


142 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

imaginative writers, for instance De Quincey 
and Baudelaire, yet possessing a certain scien¬ 
tific value. Finally we have introspective ac¬ 
counts of intelligent patients who have recovered 
from alcoholic delirium. These two latter 
groups, the mechanism of dreams and their 
occurrence and interpretation in states of men¬ 
tal dissociation, will form the chief subject- 
matter of this chapter. 

Freud has been foremost in the investigation 
of the mechanism of dreams. So important are 
Freud’s investigations on dreams, as revealing 
the mechanism of the unconscious and the 
psycho-analytic treatment of certain functional 
neuroses, that they will be discussed in the fol¬ 
lowing chapter. 

Dreams are not phenomena of accidental 
origin, but have a hidden meaning and are 
related to either dissociated, suppressed, or 
dormant past experiences, and originate chiefly 
in the subconscious mental life. In dreaming, 
the experiences may be distorted in their char¬ 
acter (called paramnesia), or the time element 
may be disturbed (anachronism), either by the 
imagination or by external stimuli. The central 
nucleus remains, however—the element of recog¬ 
nition is not absent. For instance, we may 
dream of something that we knew took place 
long ago, not to ourselves, but to others, and 


DREAMS 


143 


yet it may seem to happen at present and we 
may be the chief actor in that particular dream. 
Dreams are not insignificant and without value. 
They lay bare the innermost secrets of the 
heart, past experiences, wishes, desires. Our 
subconscious mental life is filled with experi¬ 
ences struggling to enter consciousness, and in 
sleep, when there is no longer any dissociation, 
these experiences enter consciousness and are 
interpreted as dreams. In sleep, the censorship 
of the normal waking consciousness is removed, 
the suppressed or dissociated experiences gain 
the upper hand and, colored I)y the imagination, 
they form new combinations resulting in a weird 
phantasmagoria. The mechanism of dreams is, 
therefore, similar to the dissociations of an 
everyday waking life, into which these subcon¬ 
scious elements so largely enter. 

Dreams have two principal sources:—(1) 
Those arising from external stimuli during 
sleep and becoming distorted in consciousness, 
and (2) those having purely an internal origin, 
as manifestations of conscious, suppressed, or 
dissociated experiences. In those dreams caused 
by external stimuli, the intensity of the dream- 
state is much greater than the stimulus which 
gave rise to the dream. A number of external 
conditions may thus be factors in the develop¬ 
ment of a dream, such as the position of the 


144 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

body, a loud noise, or a sudden light that strikes 
the face of the sleeper, uncovering of the bed¬ 
clothes so as to expose a portion of the body, 
hunger, thirst, impeded respiration, pain, etc. 
For instance, in Maury’s experiments on 
dreams, when the sleeping subject was tickled 
on the lips and nostrils with a feather, there 
arose a dream of terrible torture, the subject 
dreaming that a mask of pitch had been placed 
on his face and then pulled away so that the 
skin of the face came with it. When water 
was dropped on the forehead, he dreamed that 
he was in Italy perspiring freely and drinking 
white wine. 

A dream may sometimes follow a glance at 
a book or newspaper account. One subject 
dreamed of a man on a lonely island in the 
middle of the ocean, and traced this to the 
reading of newspaper accounts of Dreyfus on 
Devil’s Island. In another person, after a 
glance at a book treating of Egyptian life and 
manners, the following dream took place the 
same night. He dreamed that he was in an 
ancient Egyptian city, and about him were mas¬ 
sive buildings and monuments, adorned with 
hieroglyphics. Crowds of people were present; 
it seemed to be the occasion of some great festi¬ 
val or holiday. He was taken to the roof of a 
high building by a number of men in military 


DREAMS 


145 


dress, there he was bound hand and foot and 
lowered a short distance below the roof by 
means of a rope. One of the soldiers took an 
axe and cut the rope, and he fell an immeasur¬ 
able distance to the ground. At this point, just 
before touching the ground, he awoke. 

These are all examples of simple dreams. 
Sometimes external stimuli give rise to very 
complex dream experiences, as in the elaborate 
taste dream related by Hammond.' 

A young lady sought to cure herself of the habit of 
thumb sucking acquired in babyhood by covering the 
offending thumb with extract of aloes. During the 
night she dreamed that she was crossing the ocean in a 
steamer made of wormwood and that the vessel was 
furnished throughout with the same material, and the 
emanation so pervaded all parts of the ship that it was 
impossible to breathe without tasting the bitterness; 
everything that she ate or drank was likewise impreg¬ 
nated from the flavor. When she arrived at Havre she 
asked for a glass of water to wash the taste from her 
mouth, but they brought her an infusion of wormwood, 
which she gulped down because she was thirsty. She 
sent to Paris and consulted a famous physician, beg¬ 
ging him to do something which would extract the 
wormwood from her body. He told her there was but 
one remedy, and that was ox-gall. This he gave her 
by the pound, and in a few weeks the wormwood was all 

^ This account is taken from Manaceine: “ Sleep,” pp. 260-261. 


146 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


gone, but the ox-gall had taken its place and was fully 
as bitter and disagreeable. To get rid of the ox-gall 
she was advised to take counsel of the Pope. She ac¬ 
cordingly went to Rome and obtained an audience of 
the Holy Father. He told her that she must make a 
pilgrimage to the plain where the pillar of salt stood, 
into which Lot’s wife was transformed, and must eat a 
piece of the salt as big as her thumb. She did so and 
awoke to find that she had sucked all the aloes off the 
thumb.” 

Dreams are manifestations of a persistent 
consciousness during sleep. We dream only 
when this consciousness persists, or is active to 
a certain degree. Therefore, two things are nec¬ 
essary for dreaming—the persistence of a cer¬ 
tain amount of consciousness during sleep and 
a certain activity of this persistent consciousness. 
It has been said that a sound sleep is dreamless, 
but if dreams do occur in sound sleep, we have 
no proof of the fact, because we have no mem¬ 
ory of them on awakening. It is extremely 
doubtful, however, if there is enough of this 
persistent consciousness in a really sound sleep, 
to form any dreams. Of course lack of memory 
after a deep sleep is no proof that there was no 
conscious activity during this time and dream¬ 
ing did not take place, because in deep hypnotic 
states mental activity goes on, but there is no 
memory of this activity on regaining the normal 


DREAMS 


147 


waking condition. The same might be true of 
deep sleep. If dreams only occur in light sleep 
or in the intermediate sleep states, we remember 
them, but this does not prove that dreams are 
absent in deep sleep, because we do not remem¬ 
ber them. Under ordinary circumstances, we 
are able to recollect only a small portion of our 
mental activity during sleep. However, the 
weight of evidence seems to show that dreams 
occur only in light sleep or in the intermediate 
(hypnagogic) sleep states. The latter, as was 
previously pointed out, is a kind of a natural 
hypnotic condition. In light hypnosis, isolated 
dream-like hallucinations may take place, as 
in one of my subjects who insisted that I pulled 
his coat sleeve while he was hypnotized, when in 
reality I sat at some distance from him. In 
Patrick’s and Gilbert’s experiments on the loss 
of sleep, one of the subjects reported a dream 
while he was standing up gazing at a piece of 
apparatus. At this time he was evidently par¬ 
tially asleep, although he considered himself 
fully awake. In some of my experiments on 
the artificial production of sleep, fragmentary 
dreams occurred. One of the best proofs that 
dreams occur only in the intermediate sleeping 
states is—that we scarcely ever finish a dream. 
We always awaken at a particular part, at a 
critical moment, namely, the part at which the 


148 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

emotional element, usually fear, is the most 
vivid. The dream is unfinished, probably be¬ 
cause we are on the road to awakening while 
we dream. As we become more and more 
awake, the dream ceases. This awakening at a 
particular vivid moment of a dream was seen in 
Janet’s case of insomnia due to a subconscious 
fixed idea, and also in our case of Mrs. Y., who 
displayed four hypnotic personalities. As this 
latter case will be studied in full in another 
chapter, we will give only the essentials of a 
peculiar recurrent dream. At the moment of 
falling asleep, the patient would experience 
with great intensity the following dream. She 
would see a surgeon robed in white and with 
his sleeves rolled up, working at the back of the 
head of the patient herself and taking stitches 
in the scalp. This dream was only momentary, 
and every time she experienced it she would 
awaken immediately. 

The most interesting dreams are those which 
occur in certain dissociations of consciousness, 
such as hysteria, multiple personality, amnesia, 
and in recurrent dream states. Studies of the 
dream life in these conditions have furnished us 
with valuable information concerning the exact 
nature of these dissociations and have proven 
that dreams are merely waking experiences 
which appear during sleep, but of which the 


DREAMS 


149 


waking subject has no memory except as a 
dream. In states of psychopathic dissociation, 
dreams have their origin in the waking experi¬ 
ences of the individual. They are experiences 
of the original primary personality of which 
there is no memory in the waking state. These 
dreams appear without apparent reason, are 
strange and peculiar, and not synthetized with 
the waking or sleeping personality. 

In the case of Susan N.,^ a study of the 
dreams proved valuable and interesting and 
illustrated these points in an admirable manner. 
In this case, after an attack of prolonged 
stupor, the patient awoke to find that the mem¬ 
ory of her whole previous life, from the time 
of her birth, was completely obliterated. In 
sleep, however, the patient dreamed of episodes 
for which she had no memory in her wak¬ 
ing state and the dreams were, therefore, in¬ 
terpreted as purely imaginative creations. 
Strangely enough, identical dreams were fre¬ 
quently repeated. The dream records were 
taken verbatim from the patient and one of 
these is as follows: 

“ One dream stands out very clear. This 
was several weeks ago. It seems as if a man 
and woman came to see me, and they told 

^ Isador H. Coriat, “ The Lowell Case of Amnesia .”—Journal 
Abnormal Psychology, Vol. II, No. 3, August-September, 1907. 


150 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

me they were relatives of mine and were 
willing to take care of me. So they sent me 
off with them, and we travelled quite a dis¬ 
tance. On part of the road there seemed to be 
trees growing on both sides, not very close to¬ 
gether, and after a time they came to a house, 
and after they took me inside the man com¬ 
menced to beat me and the woman to pull my 
hair out. The man had coarse whiskers, and 
I think I’d know the woman if I should see 
her.” This dream was repeated several times 
in an identical manner. As an interesting 
and valuable sequel to the above, one after¬ 
noon later in the year the patient was taken 
for a drive to her old home, in an effort to ascer¬ 
tain if she could recognize any of the scenes 
of her childhood and early youth. But every¬ 
thing was strange and unfamiliar to her; the 
old cemetery, a former schoolmate who was 
encountered in the village road, and even the 
building in which she had formerly taught 
school. She was taken up the road to the 
house where her brother and sister lived, and 
on reaching it, she immediately said, “ This 
is the house of my dreams. I can see very 
plainly the man dragging me off the wagon 
and the woman pulling my hair up those two 
steps and through the piazza into the kitchen in 
the back.” ^ On being confronted by her sister, 


DREAMS 


151 


the patient exclaimed, “ That is the woman of 
my dream,” and although immediately recog¬ 
nized by her sister, Susan N. disclaimed all 
knowledge of her and was very frigid in her 
manner. In sleep, the patient had merely re¬ 
produced an episode which had occurred during 
her past life previous to the stupor. While 
sleeping, there was no dissociation, consciousness 
was completely synthetized. As she had no 
memory of this episode in her waking state, it 
was interpreted as merely a dream. 

In Sidis’s case of the Rev. Mr. Hanna, many 
of the lost memories appeared during dreams.^ 
In this case, as in that of Susan N., the patient 
had lost all memory of his life experiences. 
This extensive amnesia followed an accident. 
But that the loss of memory was only apparent, 
that all the events were retained in the sub¬ 
conscious mental life, as in the Lowell Case of 
Amnesia, was proved by an extensive investiga¬ 
tion. All the dreams of Mr. Hanna, the places 
spoken of, as well as the persons mentioned, 
were fully identified by the patient’s father. 
Sometimes the dream pictures were very simple. 
On one occasion, he dreamed of “ a horse with 
long ears and with a tail like a cow. Never saw 
anything like it. The horse produced such 
queer sounds.” The animal seen in this dream 

Multiple Personality,” 1905, 


152 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

was evidently a donkey, the patient not having 
seen one since the loss of memory following the 
accident. On other occasions, the dreams were 
more complex and related to scenes in the Penn¬ 
sylvania coal district, where the patient had 
previously lived. Sometimes he dreamed of 
journeys which were actual experiences in his 
former life. None of these dreams were recog¬ 
nized as former experiences but were interpreted 
as strange dreams of his present life. 

We have seen how dissociated experiences 
could appear in sleep and how the subject would 
interpret these experiences, on awakening, as 
mere idle dreams. There is another aspect of 
the question that must be briefly considered. In 
more complex cases of mental dissociation lead¬ 
ing to multiple personality, do the waking ex¬ 
periences of these personalities appear during 
sleep? It has been shown that in sleep, there 
is a more or less complete synthesis of the lost 
memories which are interpreted as dreams. 
Does the same thing take place in multiple 
personality? Are the dreams of the different 
personalities the same, no matter how different 
the experiences of the waking life? Let us see. 
In the case of Miss Beauchamp,^ who developed 
four distinct personalities, each with a distinct 
and separate mental life during the waking 

* Morton Prince: “The Dissociation of a Personality,” 1905. 


DREAMS 


153 


state, it was shown that in sleep two of the 
personalities, called B. I. and B. IV., “ reverted 
to a common consciousness and became one and 
the same. That is to say, the dreams were com¬ 
mon to both; each, B. I. and B. IV., had the 
same dreams, and each remembered them after¬ 
wards as her own.” These dreams were well 
remembered and recorded by “ Sally,” one of 
the personalities, who, according to her own 
statement, was awake the greater part of the 
night. 

Occasionally dream states will show a peculiar 
periodicity, in that they are liable to occur at 
certain times, the interval being entirely free 
from dreaming. This recurrent dream state 
was particularly well marked in one of my 
cases. It related to a young woman who began 
to have distressing dreams in the form of night¬ 
mares, following the death of her mother. 
These dreams showed a peculiar cycle, in that 
they reappeared every few weeks and would 
continue for several nights. The dream never 
occurred in the interval. Each dream was 
identical, the content being about as follows: 

“ I dreamed that I was out walking with my mother, 
near the place where she died. I walked to the top of 
the hill, looked around and came down, holding on to 
my mother’s arm. Suddenly my mother fell fainting. 
I tried to cry out, but could not make a sound. I ran 


154 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


to the house to get assistance, but I came back alone 
and found that my mother had grown old and haggard¬ 
looking and was dressed in black. Then I woke up.” 

Hysterical paralyses and contractures some¬ 
times follow a dream. Under these conditions, 
the subject dreams of the identical paralysis or 
contracture which comes on after awakening. 
Whether the dissociated state of a purely 
imaginary dream is projected into the waking 
life or whether an emotional shock occurs dur¬ 
ing the awakening, is dissociated in sleep and 
reproduced as a dream, is a question that con- 
not be answered with certainty until we have 
more data on these curious phenomena. In a 
case reported by Janet, the patient developed a 
contracture of the hands following a vivid 
dream of piano playing. In another the sub¬ 
ject dreamed that he was falling and awoke to 
find a beginning paralysis of the right arm and 
leg. That his paralysis was purely functional 
in nature was demonstrated by further investi¬ 
gation. In a case of hysterical paralysis which 
came under personal observation, the following 
curious condition was present. While walking, 
the patient would suddenly experience a sense 
of severe weakness in the legs, then there would 
follow a sensation “ as if I had no legs,” and 
she would fall. These episodes would occur a 


DREAMS 


155 


number of times during the day, but only when 
the patient was walking. On further analysis, 
it appeared that there was no history of an 
emotional shock, but during the week previous 
to her first attack, she dreamed that she was 
walking down a hill, then suddenly fell down 
and landed full length on her face. This sensa¬ 
tion of falling did not awaken the patient at 
once, but when she did awaken, she felt per¬ 
fectly normal. The dream was not repeated, 
but a week elapsed before the weakness of the 
legs developed. Here we have a condition 
almost identical with the cases reported by 
Janet. 

Let us now take an ordinarv dream and at- 
tempt to trace out a portion of the elements 
which enter into the dream consciousness. As 
an example, I take the following dream related 
by one of my patients: ‘T dreamed that I was 
walking through the snow with L. The snow 
was up to my knees. I went into a house to get 
a hat made, and I went into another house near 
by. When I came into the house, I saw two 
bedrooms; one was my room and the other be¬ 
longed to some one else. These two bedrooms 
were off the hall. As I went into my own bed¬ 
room, I passed by the open door of the other! 
An old lady lay in bed—dying. I went to bed 
and slept in my dream. Then the dying worn- 


156 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

an’s mother, who appeared to be already dead, 
came to me in my sleep. She was dressed in 
white and had long claw-like nails. The hands 
and fingers were pure white. She awakened 
me by clawing at me and I awakened in my 
dream. Then she grinned at me, but I was 
very sleepy and only opened my eyes for a mo¬ 
ment and tried to raise my hand and beckon 
her to go away.” 

In tracing the principal elements of this 
dream, the following instigators are found. 
These instigators were woven into the dream 
fantasy and their analysis will enable one to 
fathom the external causes of the dream, but 
not the unconscious or latent thoughts giving 
rise to the dream. 

Walking through the snow^\- The weather 
was very warm on that day, the patient had 
read a poem on snow in a newspaper, with 
an editorial comment on the contrast in the 
weather. 

To get a hat made The sister of the L. 
dreamed about was a milliner. 

"'An old lady lay in bed dying The mother 
of the patient had recently been ill in bed, 
following a surgical operation. 

"Tong claw-like finger nails The patient 
had been recently interested in antique furni¬ 
ture with claw legs. 


DREAMS 


157 


Dream-like hallucinations are the frequent 
accompaniment of the intoxication by certain 
drugs, particularly alcohol, opium, and hashish. 
The distorted state of consciousness produced 
by these poisons bears a strong relationship 
to ordinary dreaming. Under these conditions, 
also, the dreams are merely distorted experi¬ 
ences. Readers of De Quincey will remember 
how all the minute incidents of his life, his stud¬ 
ies in literature and philosophy, furnished the 
key to ‘‘ that tremendous scenery which after¬ 
ward peopled the dreams of the opium eater.” 
The same fact holds true of the dreams of 
the hashish habitue, as related in the Artificial 
Paradise of Baudelaire. One of my patients 
furnished me with a very vivid written account 
of his dream-like hallucinations, on recovery 
from an attack of delirium tremens. The fan¬ 
tastic and shifting character of this narrative 
and its distortion of actual experiences is prac¬ 
tically a dream, but a dream experienced dur¬ 
ing an abnormal alcoholic delirium and not dur¬ 
ing a normal sleep. In part it is as follows— 
“ There was a face at every post and every time 
I’d go by they’d swear and gibe at me for what 
I had done during life. These faces made me a 
promise that if I’d shake hands with a certain 
fellow, they’d give me peace and wouldn’t tor¬ 
ment me. So finally this fellow came along 


158 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


and I remember shaking hands with him, and 
after that those voices asked me if I wanted to 
stay on earth and work or go with them to the 
Father above. So they finally persuaded me to 
follow them. Then they asked me to relate all 
my life and I started to tell them from the 
cradle to the grave. I wouldn’t have to speak 
or talk, before they’d divine it. Two spirits 
conversed with each other. One was supposed 
to be God. As soon as I’d try to hesitate on 
any part of my life that I wouldn’t like ex¬ 
posed, they seemed to say ‘ Now he hesitates.’ 
All during this time there was a mumbling 
sound, as if we were riding in a chariot, and 
we heard electrical music on all sides, and I 
related my history from the cradle. I felt mov¬ 
ing all the time. Every moment or so, a friend 
or a face that I had forgotten appeared and 
greeted me, until finally an angel opened a trap 
above and showed us something grand beyond— 
music, angels, flowers, and every one seemed 
clothed in a garb of gold. Then all became 
darkness again and spirits appeared. We felt 
them in the vacuum around us and voices kept 
telling us that our journey was getting shorter, 
and at a certain stage I was shown my mother, 
and she told me that we would soon meet to 
part no more. So we reached a place where 
our friends all gathered around us and they 


DREAMS 


159 


said that on the morrow we would see eternal 
light. But the angel said that moments were 
counted in thousands of years. All our flesh 
and blood was to fade away. The spirit of a 
girl that I had been going with was there and 
she was to take my place when I faded away. 
During this time the gasps of the dying could 
be heard and I was left alone with the spirit of 
this girl. Finally a voice shouted, ‘ Tom, you’ll 
be there to-morrow. Throw away your earthly 
possessions.’ Then the darkness disappeared 
and then, as though by magic, the Wonderland 
of Heaven appeared to me. The sky was sap¬ 
phire blue, studded with diamonds and there 
was a vast amphitheatre and beings clothed in 
gold, emerald, and precious stones.” 

The dreams of the blind have furnished us 
interesting proof of the dependence of dreams 
on waking sensory experiences. It was shown 
by Jastrow that if the blindness took place be¬ 
fore the seventh year, the dreams were never 
of the visual type; if after the seventh year, the 
dreams were very likely to be the same as those 
of a seeing individual. In Laura Bridgman, 
the blind deaf mute, sight and hearing were as 
absent from her dreams as from the waking 
world. For instance, if she dreamed of an ani¬ 
mal she became aware of its presence only when 
it touched her. The value of educational experi- 


160 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

ences in dreams is well exemplified in the ac¬ 
counts of the dreams of Helen Keller, prepared 
for Professor Jastrow. For instance, she says, 
“ My dreams have strangely changed during the 
past twelve years. Before and after my teacher 
first came to me, they were devoid of sound or 
thought or emotion of any kind, except fear, 
and only came in the form of sensations. . . . 
I dreamed of a wolf, which seemed to rush to¬ 
wards me and put his cruel teeth deep into my 
body. I could not speak . . . and I tried 
to scream; but no sound escaped from my 
lips. . . . Occasionally I dream that I am 
reading with my fingers, either Braille or line 
print.” Later, when oral speech was estab¬ 
lished through education, talking in the finger 
alphabet disappeared from her dreams. 


CHAPTER VII 


Freud’s theory of dreams 

Freud states that the dream furnishes the 
royal road to a knowledge of the unconscious 
and thus the psychology of dream stands 
out in the center of the psycho-analytic the¬ 
ory and of the mechanism of unconscious 
mental states. In fact, Freud’s investigations 
of dreams furnish the chief technical procedures 
for psycho-analysis. Dream interpretation is 
very difficult, however, it is not only a science, 
but also an art. Without previous training one 
cannot hope to succeed in the analysis of dreams. 
Freud was led to the scientific study of dreams, 
because in the earlier stages of his analytic treat¬ 
ment of the psycho-neuroses, or as it was then 
termed the cathartic method, he found that his 
patients frequently related strange, distorted 
and bizarre dreams. Further investigation 
demonstrated that these dreams had the same 
roots in the unconscious mental life of the pa¬ 
tient as the psycho-neurotic symptoms them¬ 
selves, and consequently, the technique for the 
analysis and meaning of dreams was elaborated. 

161 


162 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

In other words, the same unconscious mechan¬ 
ism was responsible for the creation of both 
dreams and symptoms and thus the dreams 
furnished the best means for the analysis and 
treatment of the symptoms. 

What, then, is the mechanism through which 
the logical, unconscious thoughts become trans¬ 
formed to an illogical and apparently mean¬ 
ingless dream? In answer to this question, the 
technique of the dream analysis was elaborated 
and its mechanisms were investigated. The in¬ 
terpretation of a dream may thus be compared 
in accuracy and even in difficulty to the de¬ 
cipherment of a hieroglyphic or a cuneiform 
inscription. For as these latter are merely 
symbols of phonetic values and consequently 
of a once living language, so the dream is a 
symbol of the active and even remote uncon¬ 
scious thoughts of the dreamer. As a hiero¬ 
glyphic cannot be read without the aid of a 
special technique and knowledge, so the inter¬ 
pretation of dreams requires an equally well- 
equipped training. In the dream we are deal¬ 
ing with several elements, such as unconscious 
repressed impulses and wishes, dating back at 
times to the earliest years of childhood and 
usually of a sexual nature, interwoven with 
events of the day or with physical stimuli aris¬ 
ing during sleep. The unraveling of the com- 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 163 

plex dream phenomena, and discovering a cer¬ 
tain law and order in the heterogeneous fantasy 
of the dream, presupposes a high degree of tech¬ 
nical skill which can only be acquired through 
long experience. 

Therefore, on the surface, the dream as re¬ 
membered in the morning does not say what it 
means. The dream itself as remembered (called 
the manifest content), is formed from the un¬ 
derlying unconscious thoughts (called the la¬ 
tent content) of the subject. Thus what we re¬ 
call of a dream in the morning is the illogical 
manifest content and not the orderly uncon¬ 
scious thoughts or latent content, which latter 
alone betrays the true nature of the dream. 
Thus the real dream forming mechanisms, the 
unconscious thoughts of the dreamer, can only 
be disclosed by psycho-analysis because a dream 
may express, as it so frequently does, painful 
or repressed thoughts, which are sent in dis¬ 
guised and unrecognized form into the con¬ 
sciousness of the sleeper. Because of this dis¬ 
guise the underlying dream thoughts are un¬ 
recognized and do not disturb the dreamer, and 
thus the dream-hecomes really the protector and 
not the disturber of sleep. This is due to the 
action of what is termed the censorship of con¬ 
sciousness which acts on the unconscious 
thoughts, and forces them, for the protection 


164 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of the sleeper, to adopt a distorted or sym¬ 
bolized form. 

The mechanisms by which the manifest con¬ 
tent of the dream is developed for the under¬ 
lying (unconscious) dream thoughts for the 
purpose of disguise and symbolization, may be 
grouped under four headings, viz.—condensa¬ 
tion, displacement, dramatization, and second¬ 
ary elaboration. 

A dream is brief, even its elements are brief 
and certain figures of a dream may be fused 
together, like the faces in a composite photo¬ 
graph. Sometimes this fusion is very elaborate 
and hence, when the figure is analyzed, one 
finds that it represents an entire series of under¬ 
lying thoughts. For instance, a subject 
dreamed that he was walking in a public square 
with a girl whom he failed to recognize. An¬ 
alysis of the girl in the dream, showed her to 
be a condensation or a blending of several male 
and female friends—namely:— 

1. The subject’s fiancee. 

2. A recent female acquaintance. 

3. One of his boy friends whom he had not 
seen for years. 

4. A photograph of an actress whom he had 
recently seen. 

Therefore, this fragmentary dream condensed 
or blended a number of the subjects, thoughts. 



FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 


165 


and mental processes. For instance, a dream it¬ 
self may occupy merely a couple of lines or half 
a page, while the analysis may take several or 
even a dozen pages, so marked does the con¬ 
densation frequently become. In addition this 
condensation is also shown in that the dream 
which we remember on awakening may rep¬ 
resent only a remnant of the total dream. 
Sometimes the condensation may express a 
profound wish of the subject or again, it may 
be a pun. This condensation of several sub¬ 
jects shows that the dream is over-determined, 
—in other words one figure or word in a dream 
may denote a manifold representation of the 
dream thoughts. A rather pretty example is 
the following dream. The dreamer seemed to 
see a new book upon the table with the title 
“ Bragmatism ’’ and under it, the name of a 
friend who was the author of the book. An¬ 
alysis of this dream showed the following. The 
friend had planned to write a book on “ Prag¬ 
matism ” and had frequently spoken of the 
book at length. Thus the title on the book 
was obviously a condensation of two words 
“ Brag ” and ‘‘ Pragmatism,” which by a proc¬ 
ess of displacement of the letter P, by the letter 
B, had been transformed and expressed the 
attitude of the author of the projected book. 
Condensation, therefore, is a mechanism by 


166 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

which similarity or identity between several ele¬ 
ments in the latent content of the dream, finds 
its expression in the manifest content, probably 
for the purpose of evading the censor. Thus 
in this dream, we see the same mechanism at 
work as Freud postulated in his theory of 
wit—namely a condensation leading to a play 
upon words. 

The second distorting mechanism is termed 
displacement. Condensation and displacement 
are the two principal distorting mechanisms 
taking place in dreams in the passage from the 
latent to the manifest content. Dream dis¬ 
placement is one of the chief means for pro¬ 
ducing disfigurement of a dream. Displace¬ 
ment changes important unconscious thoughts 
or wishes to something insignificant, conceals 
the reasons of the dream and this tends to ren¬ 
der more unrecognizable the connection between 
dream content and dream thoughts. The chang¬ 
ing of the letter P to B in the dream analyzed 
above, is a pretty example of displacement as 
well as of condensation. In certain dreams 
showing the CEdipus-complex, the figure of the 
parent is sometimes displaced by an indifferent 
individual due to the action of the censor. 
When Alice in “ Alice in Wonderland ’’ refers 
to studying “ mystery ” and “ seaography,” we 
have again an example of dream displacement. 



FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 167 

The third mechanism of dream distortion, 
termed dramatization, is the process by which 
the dream thoughts assume a dramatic form, in 
other words, in a dream, past, present, and even 
future wishes may be unrolled in a most dra¬ 
matic manner. 

The fourth mechanism, termed secondary 
elaboration, arises more from the unconscious 
mental processes than from the underlying 
dream thoughts. It tries to make sense and 
connection out of the dream or it may make a 
concession to conscious thinking. This conces¬ 
sion to conscious thinking is often seen in a 
dream within a dream, as when the dreamer says 
to himself, “ Why, it is all a dream.’’ The best 
examples of this are seen in so-called self-in¬ 
terpreted dreams. For instance, in one case, a 
patient dreamed that he took a certain dream to 
me and I analyzed it (all in the dream). It so 
turned out, that the analysis given in the dream 
was the one which the patient himself desired, 
in other words, the wish of the dreamer was 
completely fulfilled. 

Thus a dream is a many-sided and complex 
conscious and unconscious process. Not only 
do these mental processes take part in the elabo¬ 
ration of a dream, but external stimuli during 
the night (such as pressure of the bedclothes 
or the exposure of certain portions of the body) 


168 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

and recent, even insignificant episodes and con¬ 
versations enter into and are woven into the 
dream. Likewise in many dreams an analysis 
will disclose many of the remote happenings, 
mental conflicts, and wishes of early childhood. 
The transformation of all these adult and in- 
. fantile unconscious thoughts into the dream, 
combined with the conscious thoughts and ex¬ 
ternal stimuli, the so-called process of dream¬ 
making, is a complex mental process and not a 
mere physiological automatism. The entire 
psychical complex may thus be reconstructed 
through the data furnished by the psycho¬ 
analysis of dreams and all its apparently heter¬ 
ogeneous phenomena thus fall into certain law 
and order. It is here that the validity of de¬ 
terminism comes in, as demonstrating that a 
dream, like an hysterical symptom, is not a 
chance phenomenon, but is conditioned or made 
by a group of psychical and physical stimuli, 
often unknown to the subject. Thus a dream 
represents processes of great psychical signifi¬ 
cance to the subject, for within the dream itself 
as remembered there is hidden the latent dream 
material, which may be roused to activity 
through various stimuli. 

We now come to the central point of Freud’s 
theory, the point which has aroused the greatest 
amount of discussion and antagonism, namely. 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 169 

that the dream represents the fulfillment of a 
wish. This wish may be very clear in children’s 
dreams, since children are not actuated by 
severe mental conflicts and have no desire, from 
moral or ethical standpoints or for social con¬ 
ventionalities, to hide the wish elements in their 
dreams. In their waking moments likewise, 
children do not attempt to hide or symbolize 
their thoughts and therefore their language and 
actions, like their dreams, is free from disguise. 
For instance, a little girl who was living under 
conditions of poverty, dreamed one night of 
having a magnificent dining-room in her home 
and the dining-table was filled with dishes of 
fine china loaded with eatables. Here the wish 
element was clear and undisguised. It is for 
this reason that fairy-tales appeal to children, 
for the child’s imagination is essentially and 
pre-eminently a wish-imagination and the child’s 
wishes are fulfilled by the fantasy of the tales. 
In fact the central content of most fairy-tales 
(for instance the tale of Aladdin and the won¬ 
derful lamp or the fairy godmother in Cin¬ 
derella) are wishes and subserve the purpose of 
fulfilling the child’s imagination. Primitive 
races are essentially like children in this respect. 

In adult dreams the wish fulfillment of the 
dream forms its central nucleus, provided the 
dream be sufficiently analyzed or the resistance 


170 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of the subject is such that an analysis can be 
carried out. In fact, the wish in adult dreams 
is hidden within the manifest content of the 
dream. The wish in adults may be a recent one 
or may extend far back to the earliest years of 
childhood, such as the dreams of nakedness or 
those of the death of near or dear relatives. It 
is not necessary that the wish be present now, it 
is sufficient if it existed, even temporarily, at 
some remotely early period of the individual’s 
life. For this reason a dream is often referred 
to as a child slumbering in the adult uncon¬ 
scious. Stammerers, for instance, will often 
dream of talking freely in company or making 
speeches. In another case, the subject had re¬ 
cently read a newspaper account of how a cer¬ 
tain acquaintance had married his wife’s nurse, 
the wife having died about a year previously. 
The news awakened an emotion of disgust in 
her and that night she dreamed that the wife 
was alive and well and that she no longer needed 
the services of this particular nurse. This is 
an example of a pure wish dream, although 
that wish was at no time in the consciousness 
of the dreamer, yet it existed in her unconscious 
thoughts and fulfilled itself in the dream. 

Mercutio’s Queen Mab speech in Romeo and 
Juliet, is a beautiful example of a poet’s insight 
into the wish mechanism of dreams. The par- 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 


171 


son, the soldier, the lover, fulfills in his dreams 
the wish fantasies of his waking life. The 
instigator of each dream is individual and is 
transformed by the sleeper into his character¬ 
istic dream wish. 

“ In this state she gallops night by night 
Through lovers’ brains, and then they dream of love; 
O’er courtiers’ knees, that dream on court’sies 
straight; 

O’er lawyers’ fingers, who straight dream on fees; 
O’er ladies’ lips, who straight on kisses dream. 
Which oft the angry Mab with blisters plagues 
Because their breaths with sweetmeats tainted are: 
Sometime she gallops o’er a courtier’s nose. 

And then dreams he of smelling out a suit; 

And sometime comes she with a tithe-pig’s tail 
Tickling a parson’s nose as ’a lies asleep. 

Then dreams he of another benefice: 

Sometime she driveth o’er a soldier’s neck. 

And then dreams he of cutting foreign throats. 

Of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades, 

Of healths five fathom deep: and then anon 
Drums in his ear, at which he starts and wakes. 

And, being thus frighted, swears a prayer or two. 
And sleeps again.” 

(Romeo and Juliet—Act I., Scene IV.) 

A patient suffering from an anxiety neurosis 
who came under my treatment, had one night 
the following fragmentary dream.^ 

^ For obvious reasons in none of the dreams analyzed in this 
chapter, can the various steps of the psycho-analytic technique be 
given. 


172 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

Dream —He seemed to be losing his hair and 
becoming very bald and he was attempting to 
overcome this baldness by the use of a hair tonic. 

Analysis —In the dream, he was greatly dis¬ 
turbed emotionally over the loss of the hair, 
because he felt that this would make a marked 
change in his appearance. It could be shown, 
however, after the analysis had been carried 
further, that this emotional reaction in the 
dream was all out of proportion to the idea of 
baldness, in other words, it was overdetermined. 
The patient was a sufferer from a severe 
anxiety neurosis and the nervous disturbance 
was associated in his mind, because of the symp¬ 
toms of fear characteristic of his disease, with 
physical weakness. Growing old likewise meant 
to him increasing physical infirmity and bald¬ 
ness and therefore the baldness in the dream 
symbolized this physical infirmity. The tonic in 
the dream was an attempt to grow the hair 
(in other words to strengthen that which sym¬ 
bolized physical infirmity and weakness). The 
dream, therefore, represents a concealed wish 
for retaining his physical power and was sym¬ 
bolized by the manifest content of a fear of 
change in his personal appearance. The latent 
content of the dream, however, was a wish to 
retain his physical strength, and in the dream 
there was an attempt to fulfill this wish. 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 173 

One thing is noticeable in this dream analysis, 
namely, the resemblance of the dream to the 
Samson legend. Thus the symbolism of both 
myths and dreams has its roots in the uncon¬ 
scious, in one case that of the individual, in the 
other in the fantasies of the race. Samson loses 
his strength when he loses his hair; the same 
symbolism is found in the above dream. 

The fact that the wish mechanism is the chief 
function of the unconscious, has, as previously 
stated, aroused a storm of protest. But we 
must remember that one of the most important 
elements of our mental functioning is ambition 
or desire, which we gratify in two different 
ways, either fulfilling it in reality, which is the 
most difficult, or gratifying it in fancies or rev¬ 
eries. Thus the basis of all fantasy, of all 
reality, is to achieve a certain end, in other 
words, a desire or a wish. Therefore, the 
Freudian term of ‘‘ wish,” like the term “ sex,” 
is used in a broad sense, as denoting all kinds 
of desires, strivings, and ambitions. If the wish 
is repressed and cannot be fulfilled in reality, 
it may break out as an hysterical symptom, 
which is often merely a symbolized wish fulfill¬ 
ment. A wish, conscious or unconscious, which 
cannot be fulfilled in life because of social con¬ 
ventionalities or ethical or moral considerations, 
may often appear as fulfilled in a dream. 


174^ EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Thus the basic characteristic of a dream, when 
one succeeds in penetrating through psycho¬ 
analysis from the manifest content to the latent 
dream thoughts, is a wish fulfillment, in many 
cases an erotic wish fulfillment which has under¬ 
gone suppression from childhood. This is what 
is meant when it is stated that the wish need not 
be at present in the consciousness of the dreamer, 
but may have existed in early childhood and, 
either from ethical or moral or religious con¬ 
siderations, have undergone a suppression in the 
unconscious. Now the inhibitory process by 
which certain wishes and desires are kept in the 
unconscious and prevented from reaching con¬ 
sciousness, is termed the censorship, and to the 
mechanism itself the term “ censor of conscious¬ 
ness ” has been applied. In dreams, the un¬ 
conscious thoughts either partially or com¬ 
pletely escape this censorship, if the former, the 
manifest content of the dream becomes disguised 
and highly symbolized, if the latter, the dream 
may be literal, painful, and even wake the 
sleeper through the anxiety and fear which 
develop. Thus the censor protects sleep, by 
making the latent thoughts of the dreamer un¬ 
recognizable.' 

Dreams may originate from emotions which 
are common to both individuals and mankind. 
This gives rise to so-called “ typical ” dreams 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 175 

which are composed of wishes common to all 
men and it is these wishes which form the 
basis of myths and sagas. The typical dream 
is frequently an infantile reminiscence, such as 
the dream of nakedness or the dream of the 
death of a near and dear relative, usually a 
parent. The typical dream, then, contains 
wishes which our waking consciousness will not 
admit. Concerning the development of typical 
dreams and their psycho-analytic interpretation, 
Abraham makes the following statement: ^ 

“ The child, up to a certain age, is free from 
altruistic feelings. He lives in a naive egoism. 
It is throughout erroneous to assume that the 
feeling of a child for its parents and brothers 
and sisters is from the beginning a feeling of 
affection. On the contrary there exists instead 
among the children a certain rivalry. When 
a second child is born the first, who had been 
an only child up to that time, clearly shows 
jealousy on account of the attention paid to it 
because of its helplessness. It is quite usual 
that a child will not give the bottle of milk 
to the younger, that its jealousy is stirred 
up when it sees the newcomer sitting on its 
mother’s lap, which was formerly only its place. 
It envies it its playthings, it emphasizes its own 

* K. Abraham: “Dreams and Myths’’—New York, 1910. 
(Translated by Wm. A. White.) 


176 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

superiority when it speaks of the younger one 
to adults. The younger child reacts, as soon 
as it is in a position to, in just such an egoistic 
manner. It sees in the elder an oppressor and 
seeks to help itself as well as its weakness 
makes possible. Under normal conditions these 
contrasts gradually disappear to a great extent. 
They are never wholly rooted out in spite of 
all educational measures. 

“ This hostile attitude of one child toward 
the other finds its expression in the wish that 
the other were dead. Naturally it will be dis¬ 
puted that a child can be so “ bad ” as to wish 
the other dead. Who says that does not con¬ 
sider that the idea of the child of “ death ” has 
little in common with ours except the word 
(Freud). The child has no clear idea of the 
death of a person. It hears, perhaps, that this 
or that relative has died, is dead. For the 
child that only means: that person is no longer 
there. Daily experience teaches us how easily 
the child gets over the absence of a loved person. 
It perhaps stretches the hand forth in the direc¬ 
tion in which the mother has gone, it cries a 
little while—then consoles itself with games or 
food and no longer recalls spontaneously the 
going away. Older children of normal psychic 
constitution also get over separation easily. In 
early years the child identifies death with ab- 



FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 177 

sence. It cannot represent to itself that any¬ 
one, of whose death it has been told, will never 
again return. We understand now how a child 
in all harmlessness wishes the death of the other 
(or any other person). It is its rivalry: were 
it not so, then the occasion for rivalry and jeal¬ 
ousy would be removed. . . . 

“ New opposition arises when we consider the 
relation of the child to the parents from' the 
above viewpoint. How can one assume that 
the child wishes the death of the father or the 
mother? One will at most grant that in such 
cases as the abuse of the child by the parents, 
but will add that these are fortunately excep¬ 
tional cases to which the generalization is not 
applicable. 

“ The dream of the death of the mother or 
the father, as it occurs to everyone, contains 
the sought-for explanation. Freud shows from 
it that the dream of the death of parents is 
preponderatingly common concerning that one 
of the pair of the same sex as the dreamer, so 
the son, for the most part dreams of the death 
of the father, the daughter of the death of the 
mother. This behavior is explained in part as 
due to an early sexual preference of the son 
for the mother, the daughter for the father. 
Out of this preference grows a certain rivalry 
of the son with the father for the love of the 


178 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

mother and a similar situation between daughter 
and mother for the love of the father. The 
son rebels earlier or later against the patria 
potestaSj in some cases openly, in others in¬ 
wardly. At the same time the father protects 
his dominance against the growing son. A 
similar relation occurs between mother and 
daughter. As much as culture may soften and 
change this rivalry, through piety towards the 
parents, through love of the children, still its 
traces cannot be extinguished. In the most 
favorable cases these tendencies become re¬ 
pressed in the unconscious. Straightway they 
express themselves in dreams. Children who 
are disposed to nervous or psychic disease, show 
already in the early years a very strong love 
or a very strong repulsion towards the parents 
or towards one of them. In their dreams they 
show these tendencies especially clearly, not less 
clearly, however, in the symptoms of their later 
disease. Freud gives very instructive examples 
of this kind. He cites, among others, the case 
of a mentally ill girl, who for the first time, in 
a period of confusion, expressed violent aversion 
for her mother. As the patient became clearer 
she dreamt of the death of her mother. Finally 
she no longer contented herself with repressing 
in the unconscious her feelings against her 
mother, but proceeded to over-compensate for 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 179 

that feeling by constructing a phobia, that is 
a morbid fear, that something might happen to 
the mother. The aversion became transposed, 
the more the patient gained composure, into an 
excessive apprehension about her mother’s go¬ 
ings and comings. 

“ The typical dream then contains wishes 
which we in our waking life will not admit. In 
the dream life these secret wishes find expres¬ 
sion. These wishes, common to many or to all 
mankind, we meet also in the myths. The first 
point of comparison to occupy us is, then, the 
common content of certain dreams and myths. 
We must follow Freud’s lead still further. 
For, as mentioned, he has first analyzed a par¬ 
ticular myth—the GE dipus saga—from the view¬ 
point set forth in his ‘ Traumdeutung.’ I 
cite literally the following passage from 
Freud. 

“ ‘ (Edipus, son of Laius, King of Thebes, and 
Jocasta, was, as a suckling, exposed, because an 
oracle had prophesied to the father, that the 
yet unborn son would be his murderer. He was 
saved and grew up as a king’s son in a strange 
court, until he, uncertain of his origin, ques¬ 
tioned the oracle himself and received from it 
the advice, to avoid his home, because he would 
be the murderer of his father and the mate of 
his mother. On the way from his supposed 


180 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

home he fell in with King Laius and slew him 
in a quickly stirred dispute. Then he arrived 
before Thebes, where he solved the riddle of the 
sphinx that blocked the way, and as reward was 
chosen king by the Thebans and given Jocasta’s 
hand in marriage. He reigned a long time in 
peace and honor and begot, with his unknown 
mother, two sons and two daughters, until a 
pestilence broke out, which caused the Thebans 
again to consult the oracle. Here is the ma¬ 
terial of the tragedy of Sophocles. The mes¬ 
sengers brought the answer that the plague 
would cease when the murderer of Laius was 
driven from the land. The action of the story 
now consists only in the step-by-step, gradual 
and skillfully delayed unfolding—^like the 
work of a psycho-analysis—of the fact that 
CEdipus himself was the murderer of Laius 
and also the son of the murdered King and 
J ocasta.’ 

“ The CEdipus tragedy can affect us to-day 
as deeply as at the time of Sophocles, although 
we do not share the views of gods and fate, and 
the belief in sayings of the oracle. Freud con¬ 
cludes from this correctly that the fable must 
contain something that calls out in us all 
related feelings. For us all, perhaps, was it 
decreed to direct the first sexual feeling to 
the mother, the first hate and violent wish 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 


181 


against the father; our dreams convict us 
of that. In the CEdipus tragedy we see 
our childhood wish fulfilled, while we ourselves 
have recovered from the sexual attraction of 
the mother and the aversion against the father 
in the course of our development through feel¬ 
ings of love and piety.” 

Thus because of its relation to the CEdipus 
myth, these types of dreams are termed the 
(Edipus-complex dreams. In a psycho-analytic 
investigation of the subject I made the following 
statement concerning these dreams;^ “ The com¬ 
plex develops only in those children who have 
been exposed to an over-exuberant love from 
the parents or who themselves have shown a 
parental affection of abnormal intensity. In 
these cases the later development of the psycho¬ 
neurosis may be interpreted as the successful 
revenge of the nervous system upon this 
(Edipus-complex.” I have been able to study 
a number of cases containing this complex and 
from one of these the following dream analysis 
may be quoted as sufficiently indicating the 
type of material. 

Dream —He seemed to be carrying the dead 
body of his father and placing it on a shelf. 
His sorrow did not appear to be very deep, 

»Isador H. Coriat: “The CEdipus-Complex in the Psycho¬ 
neuroses .”—Journal of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. VII, No. 3. 


182 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


although his mother, who was present, seemed 
greatly grieved. He attempted to pronounce 
the burial service over his father’s body, but 
could not seem to remember it and later, when 
he attempted to extemporize such a service, he 
likewise failed. 

Analysis —The dreamer was an only child. 
Early in childhood, because his father once re¬ 
turned home intoxicated so great was the emo¬ 
tional shock that there had developed a grad¬ 
ually increasing hatred of his father and, as a 
result, he attempted to avoid him and blot him 
out of his life. In consequence the love for 
his mother grew greater and greater. He never 
wished for a brother or a sister, because, after 
the above mentioned episode with his father, he 
became very jealous and afraid that the appear¬ 
ance of another child in the family might de¬ 
prive him completely of his mother’s affection. 
(Children often make a threat of “killing” a 
new brother or sister.) For years during his 
childhood, he secretly wished for his father’s 
death.^ Although he strongly repressed this 
wish, yet whenever his father became ill, there 
arose a secret joy in the thought that perhaps 
he might not recover from his illness. The fact 

* It is interesting to note, that in one patient, a psycho-analysis 
showed that his idea of death in early childhood meant “merely 
an absence after a funeral.” 



FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 


183 


that he could not remember a word of the burial 
service in the dream whereas he could partially 
repeat it when awake, is an interesting example 
of censorship, namely, he could not remember 
it because he did not wish to remember it. 
Even before the mentioned episode, he never 
was over affectionate towards his father, al¬ 
though he never had a feeling of hostility. 
This he explained as arising from the fact that 
his father paid but little attention to him and 
never fondled or played with him when he was 
a child. There were times when his mother’s 
attention to his father made him intensely 
jealous, and therefore, in his childish manner, 
he often thought that if his father were dead 
(the term death really meant to him that his 
father be removed, no longer in the family), 
the source of jealousy would be removed. Thus 
we see, in this dream, how a childish egotism 
and selfishness culminated in a childish wish. 
The wish, however, persisted in consciousness 
only during the earliest years of childhood and 
later, because it was incompatible with his con¬ 
scious thoughts, it became repressed in the un¬ 
conscious. However, the wish was never com¬ 
pletely blotted out, for in sleep, the unconscious, 
yet at the same time active wish was sent into 
the consciousness of the sleeper in a disguised 
form and appeared fulfilled in a dream. Of 


184 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


course consciously, the subject would emphatic¬ 
ally deny that in adult life he even entertained 
such a wish, in fact, he would not admit it, but a 
psycho-analysis of the dream proved that the 
wish at one time existed in childhood and was 
suppressed in the unconscious. Since his father 
was alive at the time of the dream, the fulfill¬ 
ment was merely a fulfillment of his childish 
fantasies. 

Sometimes, too, a childish reminiscence or 
wish, if the censor allow it to pass into con¬ 
sciousness without distortion, becomes star¬ 
tlingly literal and civil, the dream then becomes 
hypermnesic and portrays in its naked truth 
the happenings of childhood. These hyper¬ 
mnesic dreams are free from any symbolism or 
distortion, in fact they are mere fragmentary 
memories of early childhood life produced in 
a most literal manner, resembling in vividness 
and fragmentary character my results on the 
experimental synthesis of lost memories in the 
functional amnesias. In both the dream and 
the experiment, the revived memories are recog¬ 
nized as portions of a personal experience, and 
in fact under these conditions, the memories are 
more vivid than can be voluntarily recalled or 
visualized under normal conditions.^ This is 

^ See particularly my paper, “ A Contribution to the Psycho¬ 
pathology of Hysteria ,”—Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. VI, 
No. 1, 1911, for examples of this type of dreams. 


FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 


185 


uncommon, however, because the dream usually 
makes use of symbolisms to express its varied 
wishes. 

The dream of nakedness too or of being in¬ 
sufficiently clothed in the presence of others, a 
type of dream which is so frequently experi¬ 
enced by normal adults, free from nervous 
disease, is also a childhood reminiscence dream 
dating from a period when the sense of shame 
was lacking. Freud states as follows concerning 
this type of dream—“ This age of childhood in 
which the sense of shame is lacking seems to our 
later recollections a Paradise, and Paradise itself 
is nothing but a composite fantasy from the 
childhood of the individual. Into this Paradise 
the dream can take us back every night; we have 
already ventured the conjecture that the im¬ 
pressions from earliest childhood in themselves, 
and independently of everything else, crave re¬ 
production, perhaps without further reference 
to their content, and that the repetition of 
them is the fulfillment of the wish.” 

Such data and investigations as these nat¬ 
urally bring us face to face with Freud’s unique 
conceptions of the mental life of the child, par- • 
ticularly its psycho-sexual manifestations and 
the relation of these manifestations to the 
neuroses. Without going into details, as these 
must be sought for in special treatises, it suf- 


186 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

fices to state that through the data secured by 
psycho-analysis it can be shown that the sexual 
instinct long antedates puberty, and in fact 
may make its appearance in the earliest years 
of childhood. The child is not sexually neutral. 
As Freud so clearly expresses it—“ It is not at 
all true that the sexual impulse enters into 
the child at puberty as the devils in the Gos¬ 
pel entered into the swine. The child has his 
sexual impulses and activities from the begin¬ 
ning, he brings them with him into the world, 
and from these the normal so-called sexuality 
of adults emerges by a significant development 
through manifold stages. It is not very diffi¬ 
cult to observe the expressions of this childish 
sexual activity, it needs rather a certain art 
to overlook them or fail to interpret them.” 
However, without entering into details, it may 
be stated that “ sexual ” in the Freudian sense, 
has a different connotation from the function 
of reproduction and is given merely to the 
different kinds of pleasure—sensations of the 
child which by imperceptible gradations pass 
into the sexuality of puberty and adult life. 

• In very young children, the sexual instinct is 
not, as in adults, directed towards other persons, 
but to the child’s own body. This condition 
is called “ auto-erotism ” by Havelock Ellis. 
The remains of this auto-erotism may often be 




FREUD’S THEORY OF DREAMS 187 

found in the psycho-neuroses of adults. In the 
unconscious mental life of all neurotics there 
may often be found, to a greater or less degree, 
perversions of the sexual instinct brought over 
from childhood, and neurotics often maintain 
their infantile or childhood attitude towards sex¬ 
uality. In early childhood too, the sexual im¬ 
pulse may become accidentally side-tracked and 
attach itself to objects or actions, thus giving rise 
to the various sexual perversions, fetichism and 
symbolism. The emotion of love may be experi¬ 
enced long before puberty, although at a very 
early age the child is primarily auto-erotic and 
incapable of sexual choice. In cases published 
by Freud and Jung and also in some personal 
psycho-analytic investigations, it has been pos¬ 
sible to trace the sexual emotions to the very 
earliest period of childhood. Unsuccessful 
struggle with the childhood sexual complexes, 
often leads to a neurosis in the adult. The 
theme of sexuality in dreams is often expressed 
in a symbolic manner, because the sexual in¬ 
stinct is so powerfully repressed. In fact, 
whole lists of phallic symbols have been worked 
out through psycho-analysis. 

To summarize briefly, a dream is the fulfill¬ 
ment of unconscious repressed wishes and uses 
as material, either childhood episodes, adult 
happenings, various physical stimuli, or pre- 


188 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

sleeping thoughts, all of which are woven into 
the complex phantasmagoria of the dream. 
The latent thoughts alone explain the dream 
and this explanation can only be investigated 
through the special technique of psycho-analysis. 


CHAPTER VIII 


HYPNOSIS 

We will now take up the discussion of per¬ 
haps the most important artificially induced 
mental condition, namely, hypnosis. As a com¬ 
plete understanding of the subject can only 
be obtained by an insight into other related 
conditions we will turn very briefly to certain 
closely allied states, such as normal absent- 
mindedness, conditions of experimental distrac¬ 
tion, and the hypnagogic state. 

Hypnotism was made use of by the Egyptian 
priests, in the Middle Ages it became bound up 
by certain occult doctrines, and even to-day in 
India the mystic fakirs openly exhibit hypnotic 
phenomena in pubhc. But it was only toward 
the end of the eighteenth century that the scien¬ 
tific world began to take hypnotism seriously. 
Finally through the work of a group of French 
investigators the phenomena of hypnosis were 
stripped of occultism and mysticism and be¬ 
came a well-recognized scientific procedure. 

The theories of hypnosis have been many, and 

like sleep it has had its biological, physiological, 

189 


190 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

and psychological interpretations. Even to¬ 
day, in spite of the immense amount of work 
which has been done on the subject, there is no 
agreement as to its exact nature, although all 
agree as to its multiform manifestations. It 
is not our purpose to go into the history of 
hypnosis, but rather to discuss the nature of the 
brain state involved in the phenomenon. We 
will take up very briefly the most prominent 
theories which have been propounded to explain 
the condition, and finally discuss some of the 
very recent investigations. Before we examine 
hypnosis in man it will be best to show how cer¬ 
tain allied conditions may be found in animals 
and trace their evolution upwards in the same 
manner in which we traced the evolution of 
sleep. 

The physiologist Max Verworn has given us 
very interesting descriptions of hypnosis in 
animals and has illustrated it by some rather 
striking photographs. He says, “ It may suffice 
to recall a few well-known phenomena. The 
ancient experiments of the Egyptian snake 
charmers, which Moses and Aaron performed 
before the Egyptian Pharaoh more than three 
thousand years ago, belong to this category 
hypnosis in animals]. By slight pressure 
in the neck region, it is possible to make a 
[wildly excited, hissing, erect asp [hooded snake] 


HYPNOSIS 


191 


suddenly motionless, so that the dangerous 
creature can be put into any desired position 
without fear of its fatal bite. The well-known 
experiment of Father Kircher depends upon 
same causes. If an excited fowl be seized sud¬ 
denly with a firm grip and laid carefully upon 
its back, after a few brief attempts to escape 
it lies motionless. Guinea pigs, rabbits, frogs, 
lizards, crabs, and numerous other animals be¬ 
have similarly.” According to Verworn, the 
hypnosis of human beings depends upon the 
same physiological mechanism, that is, an inhibi¬ 
tion of the will.^ 

Forel, as the result of his extensive investiga¬ 
tions in comparative psychology, particularly on 
the nervous reactions of ants, concludes that a 
number of symptoms of human hypnosis may 
occur in animals, not only muscular rigidity 
but also extreme anaesthesia. He describes the 
hypnosis of animals as due not to fear nor to the 
abnormal position in which one places the ani¬ 
mal, but to a simplified, more automatic sug¬ 
gestion mechanism, which mechanism can be 
induced at times by fixation of the look or of the 
body. He claims that the lethargic sleeping 
condition of the dormouse and some other ani¬ 
mals is due to a simple physiological cataleptic 

*Max Verworn: “General Physiology, An Outline of the 
Science of Life.” 


192 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

state, which is induced by the action of sug¬ 
gestion, adapted to a definite purpose and in¬ 
serted in the linkings of instinct.^ Whether 
these experiments in animals are genuine hyp¬ 
nosis or mere muscular rigidity, is difficult to 
determine. Suggestibility increased over the 
normal is the most prominent manifestation of 
the hypnotic state, but whether this increased 
suggestibility occurs in animals, it is impossible 
to tell. Recently Claparede has been able to 
induce hypnosis with catalepsy in a monkey. 

My personal experiments in the induction of 
hypnotic states in animals (crayfish, frogs, and 
guinea pigs) have already been given in the 
chapter on sleep. The condition was there inter¬ 
preted as due to a cerebral inhibition, an hy¬ 
pothesis has also been put forth to explain hyp¬ 
notic states in man. 

The evolution of hypnosis offers a fascinating 
field for speculation and many of the same evo¬ 
lutionary principles can be applied to hypnosis 
as to sleep. Many animals seem to furnish ex¬ 
amples of spontaneous hypnotic states, for in¬ 
stance the simulation of death, or still better, 
the fascination of birds by snakes, which seems 
to be a kind of hypnosis with catalepsy. Certain 
animals show motionless states in reaction to 

^August Forel: “Hypnotism and Psychotherapy,” 1907. (See 
particularly Chapter XIV.) 


HYPNOSIS 


193 


fear. While motionless states of the nature of 
genuine hypnosis or cerebral inhibition may be 
artificially produced in certain animals, yet 
probably in the evolutionary scale, such states 
were made possible of artificial production be¬ 
cause spontaneously the normal defence re¬ 
actions of these animals showed similar phe¬ 
nomena. If we assume that these motionless 
states arose in animals out of stationary re¬ 
actions while waiting for their prey or for 
purposes of defence, we must also assume that 
this was an intelligent experiment on the part 
of the animal. Thus hypnosis had probably 
a biological origin like sleep, but since the 
former was unnecessary for the preservation of 
the species, it became only incompletely de¬ 
veloped spontaneously and could only be arti¬ 
ficially produced. Even then it did not appear 
until the animal began to show intelligent re¬ 
actions, a defence or instinctive reaction on one 
hand and a hunger reaction on the other. These 
reactions, however, while of great value, did not 
have the biological importance of sleep, namely, 
a repair of nervous tissue, and therefore they 
did not become, like sleep, automatic and spon¬ 
taneous. 

Like sleep, hypnosis has had many theories 
offered for its explanation. The older ideas of 
Mesmer that the hypnotic state was due to a 


194 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

special magnetic fluid, and of Braid that it was 
caused through exhaustion by over-stimulation 
of the special senses, particularly sight, need 
only to be mentioned as matters of historical 
interest. Charcot, who brought his keen insight 
to the analysis of hypnosis as well as of hysteria, 
believed that the hypnotic state was nothing 
more than an artificial or an experimental nerv¬ 
ous condition; a neurosis brought on by some 
technical device and closely allied to hysteria. 
This view, that hypnosis is nothing but artificial 
hysteria, has been insisted upon by other mem¬ 
bers of the modern French school and also in a 
modified form by Freud. According to this 
school hypnosis can be sharply divided into 
three distinct states: namely, the lethargic, the 
cataleptic, and the somnambulistic. That this 
division is a purely artificial one, and that sub¬ 
jects of hypnosis may or may not show any 
of the phenomena included in these states, we 
hope to demonstrate later. 

According to Bernheim and the Nancy school 
hypnosis is nothing but a special form of sleep 
induced by suggestion. There is no relation 
between hysteria and hypnosis. There are dif¬ 
ferent depths of hypnosis in the same manner 
that there are different depths of sleep, a view 
which is also held by Forel. Bechterew also 
claims that hypnosis is a special modification 


HYPNOSIS 


195 


of normal sleep, but his theory differs from that 
of Bernheim in claiming that the hypnotic state 
can be induced by physical as well as by psychi¬ 
cal means, without any element of suggestion. 

The histological theories have been applied in 
the attempts to explain hypnosis in the same 
manner in which they have been applied to 
natural sleep. This theory states that hypnosis 
is due to the amoeboid motions which are sup¬ 
posed, without any adequate basis, to be pos¬ 
sessed by the nerve cells, at least by the nerve 
cells of the vertebrates, since it seems that in 
them alone hypnosis can be induced by various 
means. According to this theory, any obstruc¬ 
tion, or interruption of the nerve current, due 
to a shrinking of the protoplasmic processes 
of the nerve cells, causes certain disturbances of 
consciousness, such as drowsiness, natural sleep, 
or hypnosis. The weak point in this rather 
fanciful theory has been the inability to demon¬ 
strate any such shrinking of the nerve processes 
or at least it has been demonstrated only in some 
of the very lowest organisms, in which it has 
not been possible to experimentally produce 
hypnotic phenomena and in which natural sleep 
seems likewise absent. 

Disturbances of circulation have also been 
utilized to explain hypnosis, in the same manner 
as it was attempted to explain sleep. Since it 


196 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


is well known that anaemia or a lack of blood 
in the brain may cause a state of drowsiness, 
this anaemia of the brain has also been utilized 
to explain the hypnotic state. The weak point 
in all these theories, it appears, is the a 'priori 
assumption that hypnosis is either sleep or a 
special modification of sleep. We shall later 
attempt to show that hypnosis can only be ade¬ 
quately explained when we demonstrate analo¬ 
gous phenomena in a non-hypnotic state, and 
that these phenomena are not found in normal 
sleep or at least to a less extent than they are 
found in some phases of sleep or in normal 
absent-mindedness. Investigation of the blood 
vessels of the retina has shown no diminution in 
the size of the vessels during hypnosis. Besides, 
hypnosis can be induced after the inhalation 
of nitrite of amyl, a drug which causes dilata¬ 
tion of the blood vessels and, therefore, hy- 
persemia and not anasmia of the brain. Preyer 
postulates a chemical theory for hypnosis, claim¬ 
ing that the fixed attention which seems to be 
necessary for the inducing of the hypnotic state 
causes a rapid accumulation of waste products 
in the brain and this accumulation brings about 
a partial loss of activity of the cerebral 
cortex. 

A satisfactory theory of hypnosis, then, must 
furnish an answer to several questions, viz.:— 


HYPNOSIS 


197 


1. What is the condition of the nervous sys¬ 
tem during hypnosis? 

2. What is the relation between this condi¬ 
tion and the various symptoms of hypnosis? 

3. Is there any relation between the nervous 
system in hypnosis and the means used to induce 
hypnosis ? 

According to Claparede/ who has attempted 
to answer these questions on the basis of an 
extensive investigation, hypnosis is a selective 
form of inhibition, limited to one function, 
that of the initiative. By the suspension of 
this latter function, can be explained the in¬ 
creased suggestibility of the hypnotic state. 

Thus the four most important symptoms of 
hypnosis are, loss of initiative, loss of memory, 
increased suggestibility, and the rapport, or state 
of dependence between subject and operator. 
The brain state which produces this condition 
has been the subject of much speculation, into 
the details of which we cannot enter here. The 
most prominent phenomenon of rapport on 
which all hypnosibility seems to depend has been 
explained by recent psycho-analytic investiga¬ 
tions (Ferenczi) as due to the persistence of 
certain childhood complexes in the relation of 
the child to its parents. Thus according to the 
psycho-analytic theory suggestion in hypnosis 

^ E. Claparfede—“Archives de Psychologic,” July, 1909. 


198 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


depends upon the transference of certain un¬ 
conscious emotional processes in the subject’s 
mind, usually of a psycho-sexual nature. 

It seems to us that the crux of the whole 
question is the attempt to identify hypnosis 
either with sleep or as a special modification of 
sleep. It is true that to a limited extent hyp¬ 
nosis outwardly resembles normal sleep. The 
hypnotic state can be brought about by the 
same influence and conditions as produce sleep, 
such as withdrawal of all strong stimuli, restful 
position, monotonous gentle stimulation of one 
or more of the special sense organs, expecta¬ 
tion, habit, banishment of certain thoughts, and 
the concentrating of attention on some unexcit¬ 
ing object or sense impression. In hypnosis 
and likewise in sleep the subject is inert and 
passive. Catalepsy may occur in normal sleep 
as well as in the hypnotic state; in both these 
states the subject frequently desires to move 
his limbs, but is incapable of doing so. As was 
previously pointed out, however, this inability 
to move the limbs occurs only in the semi- 
drowsy hypnagogic state, and never in deep 
sleep, for in the latter condition there is com¬ 
plete relaxation of all muscles. This peculiar 
condition, which I called nocturnal paralysis, 
sometimes occurs also as a temporary phenom¬ 
enon, when a subject is suddenly awakened 


HYPNOSIS 


199 


from deep hypnosis. Suggestibility, however, 
and the presence of reactions to suggestion is 
absent in deep sleep but is present even in the 
deepest hypnosis. Unconscious reflexes without 
mental action, such as the withdrawal of a limb 
when it is tickled or pinched, occur in sleep, but 
never in hypnosis. Suggestions given in sleep 
are never carried out when the subject is 
awakened. The motor disturbances of certain 
organic nervous diseases, such as the twitching 
of chorea, or the tremor of paralysis agitans, 
tend to cease in sleep but not in the deepest 
hypnosis. Furthermore, the light hypnotic states 
even outwardly do not resemble sleep; it is 
only in deep hypnosis that there is any such 
outward resemblance. In hypnosis the subject 
is in touch or in rapport with the operator, and 
consequently there results an automatic obedi¬ 
ence or the carrying out of post-hypnotic sug¬ 
gestions, a thing which is impossible in sleep. 
Hypnosis is a mental state brought on through 
suggestion; sleep is a habit, a reaction of de¬ 
fence on the part of the organism against 
fatigue. The simple command of “ wake ” will 
bring a subject out of the deepest hypnosis, be¬ 
cause this command acts as a negative sugges¬ 
tion. Ordinary noise will not awaken a deeply 
hypnotized subject. In sleep, however, any in¬ 
different command or noise, if made sufficiently 


200 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

loud, will awaken the subject. The result bears 
no relation to the type of command, but must 
be a stimulus sufficiently intense to disturb the 
course of sleep, and is regulated only by the 
depth of the condition. All intercourse with 
the outside world is cut off during sleep with 
the exception that dreams, even of a very com¬ 
plex nature, may arise from peripheral stimuli. 
But even in the deepest hypnosis the subject 
maintains his relations to the world about him; 
the subject can be made to walk, talk, or go 
through all sorts of complex acts; suggestions 
may be given which will act automatically even 
after the hypnotic state has been terminated. 
The loss of voluntary movement in normal sleep 
is not subject to the will or suggestions of an 
outside experimenter. In deep sleep it is a 
question how much consciousness is active, for, 
as we have previously pointed out, it seems very 
likely that dreams are absent in deep sleep and 
take place only as the subject is on the road to 
awakening. In hypnosis, however, conscious¬ 
ness is exceedingly active, intelligent conversa¬ 
tion may be carried on, and even hallucinations 
or illusions of the special senses may be brought 
about through suggestion. On termination of 
the hypnotic state known as awakening (a 
term probably derived from the fancied resem¬ 
blance of hypnosis to sleep) there may be no 


HYPNOSIS 


201 


memory for this particular localized period of 
active consciousness. That the memories are 
conserved, however, but merely dissociated, is 
shown by the fact that they may be reproduced 
or restored by other special devices, such as ex¬ 
perimental distraction, crystal gazing, automatic 
writing, or in a subsequent state of hypnosis. 

Experiences related in hypnosis for which the 
subject has no memory on awakening, may also 
cause certain physiological and psycho-physical 
reactions, such as changes in the pulse rate or in 
the electrical resistance of the body. Changes 
in the personality, temporary at least, have been 
found to take place in hypnosis, either spon¬ 
taneously or through suggestion. It is true that 
some complex dreams of sleep may also involve 
transitory changes in the personality of the 
dreamer, but here the assumed personality is 
extremely vague, and it is very unlikely that 
the same change will occur in a subsequent 
dream, whereas the hypnotic personality tends 
to reproduce itself spontaneously in all later 
hypnotic states. 

We see, therefore, that there is very little if 
any resemblance between normal sleep, or at 
least between the deeper grades of sleep, and 
hypnosis. There is, however, a portion of sleep 
which in many ways bears a striking resem¬ 
blance to the artificial hypnotic states. As we 


202 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


fall asleep there is always an intermediate state 
which hovers between sleep and awakening. It 
is called the hypnagogic state. This hypnagogic 
state occurs as a transitory phenomenon in all 
individuals, but it becomes markedly protracted 
in those subjects of insomnia who complain of 
an absolute loss of sleep. This hypnagogic state 
takes place at both ends of sleep, when the sub¬ 
ject is falling asleep and when sleep has been 
either artificially or spontaneously terminated. 
Consciousness in this state is either a little hazy 
or is completely retained. For instance, one of 
my subjects who was afflicted with nocturnal 
paralysis, was able to judge the length of time 
in which she was unable to move by gazing at 
a watch which hung over the foot of the bed. 
We have already pointed out how this condition 
of nocturnal paralysis may be observed in sub¬ 
jects who are gradually or suddenly awakened 
from a deep hypnosis as well as from natural 
sleep. Now the transition from waking to 
sleep or from sleep to waking is never sudden, 
but may be of varying duration, from a few 
seconds up to fifteen minutes. In both the 
spontaneous hypnagogic state and in artificial 
hypnosis there is increased suggestibility, a 
tendency to transitory paralysis, catalepsy of 
the limbs may appear, and even hallucinations 
may arise. In fact the post-hypnotic palsy 


HYPNOSIS 


203 


which is sometimes observed is in every way 
identical with these conditions of transitory noc¬ 
turnal paralysis. The phenomena in both cases 
appear after the hypnosis has been terminated 
by suggestion or after the subject awakens from 
sleep and is in a semi-drowsy hypnagogic 
state. 

But the most striking presence of phenomena 
analogous to hypnosis is found in normal absent- 
mindedness. Now these absent-minded states 
have awakened a great deal of interest because 
they occur in everyday life and, therefore, can 
be easily studied, and because they seem to be 
the normal analogues to many pathological proc¬ 
esses. But whether these absent-minded acts 
are mere accidental chance dissociations, or 
w^hether they are due to unconscious memories 
or the transformation of dormant complexes 
into co-conscious activity, or dormant physio¬ 
logical experiences which have become disso¬ 
ciated, is still a much discussed question. For 
each theory a certain amount of experimental 
evidence can be urged in support. Indeed, 
Freud claims that no absent-minded acts are 
due to chance or accident, but are directed by 
the automatic influence of unconscious or sub¬ 
conscious memories, usually of a painful char¬ 
acter and which may be revealed by some form 
of psycho-analytic technic. 


204 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


We saw in the first chapter how absent- 
mindedness is a state of increased suggestibility; 
in fact during this state absurd suggestions will 
be accepted by the subject, an acceptance from 
which the subject would revolt under normal 
conditions. In absent-mindedness there may be 
a decrease of motor control, the subject may 
stand still as if suddenly petrified, the same as 
in the ecstasy of hypnosis. Temporary losses 
of sensation may take place in the absent- 
mindedness so that a person may be pricked 
or pinched without apparently any sense of 
pain. The subject may be oblivious to his sur¬ 
roundings ; a thoughtless “ don’t know ” or 
“ yes ” or “ no ” may take place in reaction to 
questions, the meaning of which is not fully ap¬ 
preciated. In the large majority of cases there 
is a loss of memory for absent-minded acts. The 
absent-minded acts in these cases remain not 
only dormant but likewise dissociated. That 
they are conserved in the unconscious or sub¬ 
conscious is shown by the fact that a later 
reproduction of the act is possible through cer¬ 
tain technical methods. This was well shown in 
a certain personal experience of the writer. One 
day I had occasion to refer to some notes which 
I had made in the course of preparation for a 
certain technical paper. Prolonged search 


HYPNOSIS 


205 


failed to discover these notes, although I dis¬ 
tinctly remembered having made them on a par¬ 
ticular kind of blue paper. It then occurred to 
me that perhaps it would be interesting by 
means of crystal gazing to see if I could recover 
any trace of the lost notes. The result was 
peculiarly interesting and successful. I dis¬ 
tinctly saw myself in the crystal, sitting at my 
desk, and caught myself in the act of tearing 
up these particular notes in connection with 
some other data which I had finished using, and 
throwing the torn pieces into the waste-paper 
basket. A search in the basket discovered the 
lost and torn notes, which I was able to piece 
together. Now the tearing of these notes was 
evidently an absent-minded act; and yet an act 
which was preserved in the unconscious and 
later fully reproduced through the technical 
device of crystal gazing. 

In absent-mindedness, as well as in hypnosis, 
negative hallucinations may occur, such as in 
the frequent experiences of certain persons who 
cannot find objects which are immediately in 
front of their eyes. Now all absent-minded 
acts are temporary; absent-mindedness is a 
special condition of consciousness, for we do 
not habitually go about in an absent-minded 
state. All absent-minded acts seem to be spon¬ 
taneously dissociated experiences. This is 


206 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


shown by the fact of increased suggestibility, of 
the possibility of the recovery of the memory of 
absent-minded phenomena, and of a lack of 
attention which the subject pays to painful 
stimuli. In fact this disregard for pain¬ 
ful stimuli is a kind of a functional anes¬ 
thesia. 

Dr. Prince also insists that absent-mindedness 
is a form of temporary dissociation. “ The 
phenomena of absent-mindedness, or abstrac¬ 
tion, a normal function, indicate both dissocia¬ 
tion and automatism. It is not difficult to 
demonstrate experimentally that auditory, vis¬ 
ual, tactile, and other images which are not per¬ 
ceived by the personal consciousness, during 
this state may be perceived subconsciously. 
Thus under proper precautions I place vari¬ 
ous objects where they will be within the periph¬ 
eral field of vision of a suitable subject, C. B. 
Her attention is strongly attracted hstening 
to a discourse. The objects are not perceived. 
She is now hypnotized and in hypnosis de¬ 
scribed accurately the objects, thus showing 
that they were seen subconsciously and produc¬ 
ing subconscious states. Dissociation is plainly 
a function of the mind and brain.” ^ 

* Morton Prince: “ Do Subconscious States Habitually Exist 
Normally, or Are They Always Either Artificial or Abnormal 
Phenomena ?”—The Psychological Review, March-May, 1905. 


HYPNOSIS 


207 


It seems, therefore, that although hypnosis is 
not identical with sleep, yet it presents many 
points of similarity to a certain phase of sleep, 
namely, the hypnagogic stage. It bears the 
closest resemblance, however, to absent-minded¬ 
ness. But unlike absent-mindedness hypnosis is 
a special condition, in that the former is a spon¬ 
taneous phenomenon, while the latter must be 
artificially produced through suggestion. Most 
hypnotic states are merely conditions of more 
or less intense abstraction, in which the subject 
can either open his eyes with ease or with some 
difficulty, and in which memory is clearly re¬ 
tained. The deeper hypnotic states, with cata¬ 
lepsy, automatism, and amnesia, usually occur 
only in hysterics or in highly suggestible indi¬ 
viduals. Absent-mindedness is a temporary dis¬ 
sociation and terminates suddenly whether we 
will or no, while hypnosis can be indefinitely 
protracted by the operator, until a suggestion is 
given to awaken. Hypnosis, therefore, seems 
to be a special mental state, an artificial dissocia¬ 
tion of consciousness strongly resembling, and 
in some cases absolutely identical with, normal 
absent-mindedness, but more intense and pro¬ 
tracted, induced by suggestion and readily 
terminated by suggestion. 

All normal individuals are subject to tempo¬ 
rary absent-minded states. This absent-minded 


208 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


state is really a mental dissociation and in it 
there is a temporary increased suggestibility. 
This suggestibility ceases, however, as soon as 
the condition has terminated. If some device 
could be arranged whereby this absent-minded 
state could be produced at will and terminated 
at will, we would then have an ideal soil on 
which ideas planted through suggestion could 
grow. Fortunately we have such artificial de¬ 
vices in the states of hypnosis, and in the condi¬ 
tions of experimental distraction. In both these 
artificial conditions the memory is broadened, 
the mind is more or less completely dissociated, 
and suggestions are uncritically accepted. But 
unfortunately we cannot keep a subject in one 
of these artificial conditions for an indefinite 
length of time. Here the most important prin¬ 
ciple of all comes to our aid. Briefly it is this. 
Suggestions given to a subject during either 
of these artificial states tend to remain in the 
subconscious, and to act themselves out inde¬ 
pendently after the artificial state has been 
terminated. It makes no difference whether the 
subject remembers the suggestion or whether 
he does not remember it, the effect is the 
same. 

These two artificial devices have a certain 
range of therapeutic value. They can be used to 
correct or to cure abnormal sexual perversions, 


HYPNOSIS 


209 


chronic alcoholism, obsessions, recurrent states 
of fear, abnormal shyness, and conditions of 
abnormal self-consciousness. Hysterical symp¬ 
toms may be made to disappear, fixed ideas 
which interfere with the welfare of the physical 
organism may be overcome, and experiences 
which the subject cannot recall in his normal 
condition may be restored. However, in many 
of these conditions, only certain symptoms are 
removed by hypnotic suggestion: In the ulti¬ 
mate cure of the disorder—that is, a breaking 
down of unconscious emotional complexes— 
psycho-analysis must be utilized. 

Hypnotic suggestion has secured some of its 
best results in chronic alcoholism. Here the 
negative suggestion against drink, combined 
with the positive suggestion of increased will 
power to resist the temptation, has often such 
a far-reaching effect that it might almost be 
said to reconstruct the personality. Sometimes 
insomnia may be due to a fixed idea on the 
part of the subject that he cannot sleep. This 
fixed idea may have had its origin in a sleep¬ 
less night in the past, due to some indifferent 
experience. But after this experience the sub¬ 
ject expects that he will again have a sleepless 
night, and little by little this fixed idea produces 
an actual insomnia. Now the obvious treatment 
of this condition would be to change this fixed 




210 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

idea through some form of psychotherapy. 
Sleep-producing drugs would be useless, as the 
subject would sleep only during the period of 
drug administration. 


CHAPTER IX 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 

The exploration of the subconscious in ab¬ 
normal mental states has furnished data which 
are of great value for both diagnosis and treat¬ 
ment. This exploration, on the one hand, can 
bring to light the mechanism by which a patho¬ 
logical mental state has been produced, and on 
the other, furnish hints for psychotherapeutic 
procedures. It has been shown that certain 
abnormal mental states usually arise from an 
emotional shock. This may be either the slow 
accumulation of emotional experiences, or a 
rapid mental change after an emotional injury. 
The abnormal mental experience once started 
tends to recur or to reproduce itself automati¬ 
cally, particularly in states of fatigue or through 
association of ideas. An idea related to the 
original experience will often set going all the 
mental and physical phenomena which had oc¬ 
curred at the time of the original experience. 
This forms what is known as an association 
neurosis. In many of these functional cases, 
the mental injury, or so-called psychic trauma, 
is either consciously suppressed by the subject 

211 


212 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


or the subject may be unable to recall volunta¬ 
rily the original experience in memory. In the 
first case, we speak of the experience as sup¬ 
pressed or dormant; in the second, we say that 
the experience is subconscious or dissociated. 
Now these suppressed or subconscious experi¬ 
ences may do considerable harm, and bring 
about a severe pathological mental condition. 
Such experiences may cause hysteria, double or 
multiple personality, or they may give rise to 
peculiar convulsive attacks of a purely func¬ 
tional nature, simulating epilepsy (psycho¬ 
epileptic attacks). Therefore, it frequently 
becomes necessary that we have an account of 
the experience which we believe responsible for 
the observed pathological phenomena. Yet in 
many cases the subject is either unwilling to 
make a full confession and so suppresses the 
incidents, or he may be utterly unable to recall 
them because they are subconscious or disso¬ 
ciated. We then must have recourse to some 
technical procedure. These methods of tapping 
or exploring the subconscious mental life are 
known as psycho-analysis. These technical pro¬ 
cedures are hypnosis, the states of abstraction, 
free association procedures, either voluntary or 
induced, crystal gazing, automatic writing, the 
word reaction (association) tests, the electrical 
phenomena (psycho-galvanic reaction), the 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 213 

changes in the pulse rate (psycho-cardiac re¬ 
flex), and finally the analysis of the dream life. 
When one or several of these methods is suc¬ 
cessfully applied, we can often arrive at some 
definite result, such as a complete confession 
on the part of the subject, and thereby a break¬ 
ing down of certain resistances, the synthesis of 
certain split portions of consciousness, the work¬ 
ing out of certain suppressed feelings, and 
finally an insight into emotional experiences. 
When these experiences, whether dissociated or 
dormant, are brought into full consciousness, 
they lose their baneful influence because they 
cease to have any further independent activity. 
The resistance has been broken down. This is 
a long step toward the cure of the patient. If 
the experiences are dissociated and the cleavage 
between the conscious mental life and the sub¬ 
conscious experience can be permanently 
bridged (synthetized), here again the dissociated 
experience can be freed from any abnormal 
activity. In dormant experiences, a full confes¬ 
sion, a talking out of all the details, also acts 
as a therapeutic measure, by relieving the sub¬ 
ject of his secret. 

These psycho-analytic methods require for 
their successful practice not only a technical 
knowledge of abnormal psychology, but presup¬ 
pose a certain amount of personal skill on the 


2U EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

part of the operator. They require time, pa¬ 
tience and experience, and an ability to correctly 
interpret the conditions found. No fragment 
of memory, emotion, dream, or symptom can be 
ignored; we must follow the mental life of the 
subject through all the ramifications of the 
psycho-pathological maze. If the abnormal ex¬ 
periences have left sufficient traces on the 
nervous system, it ought to be possible to 
recover them through the various technical 
devices. 

In order for any line of treatment to be suc¬ 
cessful, it is necessary that we have a clear 
understanding of the mental processes which 
underlie the diseased condition and of the pa¬ 
tient’s physical state. Unless we have these 
data at hand, no form of suggestion can be 
successful. Suggestion is unable to dogmati¬ 
cally assert that such or such symptom can dis¬ 
appear, neither can it blindly replace the nor¬ 
mal for the abnormal. 

The emotion aroused by a painful experience 
is accompanied by some bodily symptoms which 
are expressive of the mental aspect of the emo¬ 
tions. This emotion may then fade from the 
patient’s consciousness, either because the pa¬ 
tient voluntarily suppresses it or because it is 
incompatible, painful, out of harmony with his 
character. In some conditions, the subject re- 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 215 

mains utterly unable to recall the original ex¬ 
perience, although the phenomena which accom¬ 
panied the experience may persist and take on 
an automatic activity. Thus the physical ex¬ 
pression of the emotional experience, whether a 
state of fear, a convulsion, or a disturbance of 
sensibility, continues to live in the conscious¬ 
ness of the patient. Now the mischief that has 
been caused by these experiences may be an¬ 
nulled if the emotions are allowed to work them¬ 
selves out through a full confession. The cast¬ 
ing out of these demons from consciousness is 
accomplished by what is known as the cathartic 
method. This cathartic method is nothing 
more or less than a full confession. Nothing 
is withheld, all the gaps in memory, all the 
painful emotions and associations, all the dis¬ 
agreeable feelings, the patient is urged to bring 
vividly before his mind and tell them. What¬ 
ever method is used in this procedure, whether 
hypnosis or abstraction, is merely a matter of 
technic, whose object is to extract, as it were, 
the mental thorn which is causing the mischief. 
The original emotional experience is thus side¬ 
tracked and for it there is substituted a healthier 
mental attitude. In other cases, if the experi¬ 
ence is dissociated and not merely dormant, a 
procedure must be used to enable the subject 
to recall the experience in consciousness. This 


216 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

is called a synthesis of the dissociated mental 
state. 

Freud, however, formerly claimed that the 
necessary condition for the use of his ca'tharfic 
method was the hypnotizability of the patient, 
although in his later work he gave up hypnosis 
as a therapeutic procedure and used simple ab¬ 
straction and free association. The method is 
based upon the broadening of consciousness that 
takes place during the hypnotic or the abstracted 
state. From the standpoint of treatment, the 
method aimed to remove the symptoms of the 
disease by making the patient return to the 
mental state or experience in which the symp¬ 
toms manifested themselves for the first time. 
According to this theory, the patient must have 
been in a peculiar semi-waking (hypnoidal) 
state at the time of the original emotional ex¬ 
perience, and it was this abnormal mental state 
which prevented a complete synthesis of the 
experience with consciousness. In the hypnotic 
state or in abstraction, memories, thoughts, and 
ideas emerge and, after these mental processes 
with their attached emotions have been com¬ 
municated to the physician, the symptoms could 
be overcome and their recurrence prevented. 
Thus, when the psychic process that was caus¬ 
ing the trouble reached consciousness, it became 
“ converted.” In other words, the hitherto 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 217 

pent-up emotions, which had become attached to 
certain experiences, were liberated. 

In any psycho-analytic method, it can be noted 
that the patient naturally tends to repress what 
is painful due to what is termed resistance. 
Hence gaps in the memory arise, and it can 
be found that these gaps relate to experiences 
having a strong emotional meaning. By per¬ 
sistence, however, these gaps can be filled, and 
when once the emotional experience is “ talked 
out,” liberated, a sense of relief is experienced. 
No psycho-analytic method is as simple as it 
appears, because many of these abnormal men¬ 
tal conditions are caused, not by one, but by an 
entire series of emotional experiences. Until 
all of these are brought to consciousness, the 
analysis is not complete, neither is the cure 
permanently established. So we see that these 
psycho-analytic methods not only give us an 
insight into the abnormal mental life, but have 
a decided therapeutic value. These methods of 
psycho-analysis have their parallel in everyday 
life in perfectly normal individuals. We all 
feel better when we tell a secret to a friend. A 
sense of relief is experienced when one is de¬ 
pressed and gloomy and has the “ cry out.” 
Even suppressed laughter is painful if one is 
in a situation where laughter would be indiscreet 
or inadvisable. In spite of the stress laid by 


218 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


the various investigators upon hypnosis, abstrac¬ 
tion, or automatic writing, these methods are 
mere technical devices. Any method which will 
enable one to reach suppressed experiences or 
to synthetize a detached state of consciousness, 
would be equally effective. Through the asso¬ 
ciation tests, and by means of the psycho¬ 
galvanic and pulse reactions, we can often trace 
the memory of an emotional experience. 

It is to Professor Sigmund Freud of Vienna 
that we are indebted for the psycho-analytic 
methods in certain functional neuroses, particu¬ 
larly in hysteria. Professor Freud recently 
visited this country and gave an account of his 
theories at Clark University. Dr. Putnam has 
furnished us with an excellent description of 
the evolution of these psycho-analytic methods 
in Freud’s mind.' He says: 

“ In brief, the history of Freud’s investigations and 
opinions is the following: In 1881, an older colleague, 
Dr. J. Breuer, of Vienna, had occasion to treat an in¬ 
telligent young woman suffering from hysteria in a 
serious form for which he tried the usual means in 
vain. At length, after a long and tireless searching, 
he found that the facts offered by the patient in ex¬ 
planation of her illness, although they were freely fur¬ 
nished and represented her entire history so far as she 
consciously could furnish it, constituted only a tithe 

* J. J. Putnam: “Sigmund Freud and His Work .”—Journal 
Abnormal Psychology, Vol. IV, No. 5-6. 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


219 


of the story which, in the end, her memory succeeded 
in drawing from its depths. Under the influence of a 
special method of inquiry, many hidden facts, repre¬ 
senting painful experiences long ago forgotten, came 
one by one to light and were as if lived over, attended 
by the emotions that originally formed a part of them. 
And just in proportion as this happened, in propor¬ 
tion as the dense barriers were overcome that separated 
this hidden portion of the patient’s past from that of 
which she had remained consciously aware, one and 
another of her distressing symptoms dropped away and 
disappeared forever. The details of the long and 
significant history of this case cannot be given here. 
Let it suffice to say that although no further investi¬ 
gations based on it were undertaken for ten years, yet 
the facts observed had made a deep impression upon 
Dr. Freud and were meditated on by him during this 
decade, a part of which he passed as a student of Char¬ 
cot’s in Paris, and that on his return he begged Breuer 
to take the matter up again. After this, for a con¬ 
siderable length of time, they worked together; later 
Freud alone. It became gradually more and more 
clear to them that the childhood of this patient had 
been in an unsuspected degree and sense the parent of 
her later years. For not only had it been found that 
many of the events which counted for so much in the 
production of her illness dated back to days of early 
youth, but the later experiences which had come upon 
her, one after another, and which were the ostensible 
and apparently sufficient causes for her illness, were 
discovered to owe a large portion of their power for 


220 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


harm to the fact that they reproduced in a new shape 
old emotions of childish form and substance, of which, 
before her treatment, she would truthfully have pro¬ 
fessed herself to be entirely unaware. Only when these 
emotions were reached and the experiences correspond¬ 
ing to them lived over, in memory and in speech, was 
the recovery complete. ... It became clear to 
Breuer and Freud, further, and in harmony with the 
principle just expressed, that this patient’s painful 
memories of the past, which at first had seemed as dead 
to her as if the experiences which they stood for never 
had occurred, represented in reality living and acting 
forces. And not only this, but that the very barriers 
which had to be overcome in reproducing them rep¬ 
resented living and active forces too, all vibrating with 
significance for the present moment and for the details 
of the illness. In other words, the term ‘ barrier ’ 
as used for the ‘ forgetting ’ of the hysterical patient, 
was shown to be a misnomer. Indeed, the forgetting 
of persons in normal health is largely repression, an 
active process of lending oneself to the task of learning 
how not to dwell upon a subject now painful but which 
perhaps had once a powerful interest. It has often 
been remarked that the conscious memory picks out the 
pleasant items of life and rejects the rest. We remem¬ 
ber the charms and novelty of an ocean trip, of foreign 
travel, and conveniently ‘ forget ’—in reality turn 
away from—the seasickness, the dirty inns, the sleep¬ 
less nights. It was the significance of this species of 
forgetting and its relation to sickness and to health 
that Freud was led to study, and to which he has devoted 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


221 


all the powers of a keen and well-trained mind for 
twenty years. In the course of these investigations 
Freud and Jung and their followers have dived more 
deeply than any one before into the mysteries of the 
unconscious life. These investigations were inspired, 
primarily, not by theory but by the recitals of patients 
who had been helped to search out their memories and 
their motives to a degree that never before had been 
made possible. New evidence has thus been brought 
to show that this hidden life, if technically ‘ uncon¬ 
scious,’ is anything but inactive. On the contrary, it 
is the living supplement of our conscious and willed 
existences, the dwelling-place and working-place of 
emotions which we could not utilize in the construction 
of the personality that we had shaped and rounded and 
that we longed to think of as standing completely for 
‘ ourselves.’ ” 

Thus psycho-analysis is dependent upon the 
Freudian conceptions of the unconscious. The 
gaps and defects in memory which appear in 
every ps3^cho-analytic procedure are due to re¬ 
pression, and the repression itself to the resist¬ 
ance which sets itself against the revival of 
unconscious memories. Thus the resistance op¬ 
poses reproduction of the unconscious thoughts 
often extending back to the earliest years of 
childhood and so distorts these memories that 
they appear only in a disguised and symbolic 
form in consciousness, either as the dreams of 
the patient, or in the form of various hysterical 


222 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

and obsessional manifestations. The greater 
the resistance, the more pronounced the distor¬ 
tion. A psycho-analysis cures, therefore, by 
overcoming these resistances and thus by means 
of the special technique brings the unconscious 
thoughts to the full consciousness of the subject. 
All psycho-analytic treatment is a constant 
struggle against newly-appearing resistances, 
because it is the content of infantile repressed 
memories or abnormal emotional fixations or 
reactions which occur in early childhood, which 
are responsible for the development of a psycho¬ 
neurosis in adult life. A psycho-analysis strikes 
complexes and forces an expression of repressed 
feelings, in the same way that the play within 
the play in Hamlet forces a confession from the 
guilty King, and thus subserves the purposes of 
a psycho-analysis. Psycho-analysis works by 
both breaking down resistances and by a mech¬ 
anism called “ transference ” which is really a 
free yielding up to the psycho-analytic treat¬ 
ment. Into these important factors, whose 
management constitutes the most difficult part 
of psycho-analysis, it is impossible for us to 
go, without leading too far into technicalities. 

Psycho-analysis has had its opponents and 
modifications, in an attempt to break away 
from the radical conceptions of Freud. How¬ 
ever, these modifications, while introducing sev- 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


223 


eral new hypotheses, have left the fundamental 
principles unaltered. The most recent modifica¬ 
tions have come from Adler and Jung. Accord¬ 
ing to the former, psycho-neuroses develop only 
in those whose organism, from the functional 
standpoint, has shown a defective development. 
The neurosis arises as a compensation for this 
defect, rather than on the basis of a repression. 

Jung starts out with the proposal to liberate 
the psycho-analytic theory from the purely 
sexual standpoint. He considers all psycho¬ 
logical phenomena as manifestations of energy, 
which energy is conceived as a desire or a libido 
in the widest sense of the term, thus making it 
synonymous with vital energy in general or 
with Bergson’s elan vital. He then goes on to 
state “ The first manifestation of this energy 
in the suckling is the instinct of nutrition. 
From this stage the libido slowly develops 
through manifold varieties of the act of suck¬ 
ling into the sexual function. The pleasure in 
suckling can certainly not be considered as a sex¬ 
ual pleasure, but as a pleasure in nutrition.” ^ 

^ This and the other statements of Jung are quoted from his 
report on Psycho-analysis to the International Congress of Medi¬ 
cine—London, 1913 (Symposium on Psycho-analysis). 

* In order that this conception may be understood, it must 
be stated that Jung is at variance with the Freudian con¬ 
ception, which asserts that the suckling instinct in babies is a 
manifestation of infantile sexuality and may be independent of 
its relation to hunger. 


224 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

While he admits that infantile sexual fantasies 
may determine the form and development of a 
neurosis, he does not believe that this fantasy 
originated the neurosis. They are, however, 
frequently exaggerated and put in the fore¬ 
ground of the neurosis, because of the activity 
of the stored-up energy previously referred to 
not being applied in a suitable manner. 

Thus a nervous disease usually breaks out at a 
^critical moment when a new adjustment or adap¬ 
tation is demanded. The failure of the adap¬ 
tation causes the neurosis, and in the neurotic this 
lack of adaptation is more important than ab¬ 
normal fixations dating from childhood. How¬ 
ever, Jung is forced to admit the strong part 
played by childhood fixations, particularly the 
CEdipus-complex. He modifies this viewpoint 
by claiming that while fixation is persistently 
active, it is only under certain conditions that 
it becomes disintegrated and thus produces a 
neurosis. This disintegration usually occurs 
when new psychological adjustments or adapta¬ 
tions become necessary or are demanded, a fea¬ 
ture which has been noted by every neurologist 
and is usually referred to in popular language 
as a “ nervous breakdown.” The stored-up 
energy cannot meet the new obstacles, there is 
a return to more primitive ways of adaptation 
(fixation), in other words, a regression has 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 225 

taken place. Thus sexual regression and not 
sexual repression is the cause of an outbreak 
of a neurosis. 

This altered view of the etiology of the neu¬ 
roses does not in any way invalidate the pro¬ 
cedures of psycho-analysis. Jung states for 
instance as follows, concerning this standpoint 
—“ Here the question arises whether it is still 
advisable to bring to light all the patient’s 
fantasies by analysis, if we now consider them 
as of no etiological significance. Psycho¬ 
analysis hitherto has proceeded to the unravel¬ 
ing of these fantasies because it considered them 
as etiologically significant. My altered view 
concerning the theory of neurosis does not 
change the procedure of psycho-analysis. The 
technic remains the same. We no longer 
imagine we are unraveling the final root of the 
disease, but we have to haul up the fantasies 
because the energy which the patient needs 
for his health, i.e., for his adaptation, is at¬ 
tached to the sexual fantasies. Through psycho¬ 
analysis you re-establish the connection between 
the conscious and the libido in the unconscious. 
Thus you restore this unconscious libido to the 
command of conscious intention. Only in this 
way can the formerly split-off energy become 
again applicable to the accomplishment of the 
necessary tasks of life. Considered from this 


226 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

standpoint, psycho-analysis no longer appears 
to be a mere reduction of the individual to his 
primitive sexual wishes and it becomes clear 
that psycho-analysis, rightly understood, is a 
highly moral tosh of an immense educational 
value/^ ^ 

The only modification in Jung’s theory of 
the neuroses, so far as I am able to determine, 
is an etiological one, the fundamental principles 
of the relation of the unconscious to the con¬ 
scious remain unchanged. It is merely a dif¬ 
ference in definite causation and not in thera¬ 
peutic procedure. 

A brief report of a simple case will make the 
subject of psycho-analysis clearer. This case 
was analyzed by means of the abstraction 
method and the association tests. A woman 
complained to me of a headache, fatigue, depres¬ 
sion, inability to make up her mind to do things, 
and numbness, stiffness, and a decided weak¬ 
ness of the left hand. This latter she first 
noticed while attempting to put on a pair of 
gloves. An examination disclosed some phys¬ 
ical signs of hysteria, such as diminished sensi¬ 
bility and muscular weakness of the left hand, 
and a limitation of the field of vision. When 
the patient was placed in a quiet, relaxed posi¬ 
tion, and encouraged to tell everything concern¬ 
ing her illness, the following story was obtained: 

^ The italics are Jung’s. 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 227 

Her sister-in-law had died suddenly, some two 
months previously. At the funeral, the patient 
M’^as much depressed and considerably overcome 
by emotion. On taking off her gloves that 
night, on her return from the funeral, she found 
that the left hand was numb and weak. Both 
the numbness and the weakness covered the 
exact area of the glove. The association tests 
showed a distinct lengthening of the reaction 
time when test words relating to the emotional 
experience were used (such words as funeral, 
sister, flowers). 

For fulness of record and psychological in¬ 
sight, Dr. Prince’s case of Miss Beauchamp is 
an example of what may be accomplished 
through psycho-analysis. The record of this 
case also emphasizes the fact that the psycho¬ 
analysis is neither a mere euphuism nor a 
synonym for a kind of psychological “ third 
degree.” It means mental analysis gained 
through the utilization of all sorts of psychologi¬ 
cal devices, long patient observation, the care¬ 
ful sifting of material and the unprejudiced 
interpretation of all the data gained. The 
secret of Miss Beauchamp’s several personalities 
lay unrevealed until it was discovered that the 
Miss B. who applied for treatment was not the 
original self. After long observation the prob¬ 
lem was solved through the sudden appearance 


228 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


of a strange individual who went back to an 
emotional experience six years earlier. It was 
this experience which led to the complex mental 
dissociation that formed the various personali¬ 
ties. The neurasthenic Miss Beauchamp who 
sought medical advice was but one of this group 
of personalities. After the details of the ex¬ 
periences are given the narrative goes on to say, 
“ Then she began, according to Sally’s account, 
gradually to change in character. She became 
nervous, excitable, and neurasthenic. All her 
peculiarities became exaggerated. She became 
unstable and developed aboulia.^ She grew, 
too, abnormally religious. There was no seri¬ 
ous objection then to regarding B. I.^ as a 
quasi-disintegrated somnambulistic person, in 
spite of the continuity of her memory.” 

In one case of nocturnal paralysis, it was 
possible, through psycho-analytic methods, to 
trace the pathological condition back to an 
emotional shock which had occurred several 
years previously. 

Psycho-Analysis of a Case of Hysteria 

We are now prepared to give the detailed 
analysis of a complex case of hysteria, with the 
aid of some of the technical devices already 

^ Weakness of will power. 

“ One of the personalities, in fact the personality who applied 
for treatment on account of her neurasthenic symptoms. 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 229 

enumerated. In the interpretation of this case, 
the problem will be approached from the stand¬ 
point of the theory which states that hysteria 
represents a state of mental dissociation. This 
theory has given us a clearer understanding of 
the psychical mechanism underlying the various 
hysterical manifestations than any other theory 
with which we are acquainted. 

Miss F. for a number of years had suffered 
at various intervals from pecuhar attacks con¬ 
sisting of headache, palpitation of the heart, and 
twitching of both arms, particularly the left 
arm. Each attack was of several months’ dura¬ 
tion. In the intervals between the attacks she 
was perfectly well. Sometimes the twitching 
was so severe that the patient was compelled 
to go to bed for a week at a time, and on one 
of these occasions, she was in a stuporous con¬ 
dition for two days. The attacks are said to 
have followed an emotional experience when the 
patient was eight years of age, a fright at seeing 
her cousin disguised in white to resemble a 
ghost. While the patient had heard of this ex¬ 
perience in general, she has never been able 
to recall it in detail. Sometimes in the attacks 
she feels peculiarly, as if she were not herself; 
on other occasions there is no sensation of the 
left side of the body, so that she is able to strike 
and bite her left arm without pain. 


230 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

A physical examination showed some of the 
physical signs of stigmata of hysteria, such as 
loss of sensation on the left side of the body, 
weakness of the left arm, and a limitation of 
both fields of vision to between 35° and 40°/ 
In this case, however, as in most hysterical con¬ 
ditions, the mental state was the most important 
phenomenon as presenting a type of disintegra¬ 
tion of the personality. An analysis of this 
mental state showed many interesting phenom¬ 
ena, such as extreme suggestibility, instability 
of character, abnormal emotionalism, amnesia, 
illusions of memory, and the presence of sub¬ 
conscious mental states, in which episodically the 
almost complete disintegration of personality 
became very marked. Furthermore it was pos¬ 
sible to show that these protean symptoms fol¬ 
lowed an emotional experience, which became 
subconscious and assumed an independent 
activity. 

"Analysis through Hypnosis 

Miss F. was very easily hypnotized, with 
amnesia (loss of memory) on awakening from 
the hypnotic state. In this artificial condition, 
she was able to recall vividly all the details of 
the emotional experience, but on being awak- 

^The field of vision in normal individuals varies between 90 ° 
and a minimum of 60 °. 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 231 

ened, she again became amnesic for this experi¬ 
ence. While hypnotized and asked to relate 
the ghost experience, she gives the account as 
follows in laconic sentences and in a very dra¬ 
matic manner. “ Seem to see it all now. The 
door opens. He is coming out of the room. I 
see the white over him. He makes a noise. He 
comes near me. It is dark. All I can see is 
the white, and I scream. He tells me it is he 
and not to cry. I was taken to the bed. I 
don’t remember from that until the doctor 
came.” In the same hypnotic state she also 
gave some further details of her experience, in 
which she struggled, bit, and was finally ren¬ 
dered unconscious through the use of chloroform. 
The emotional shock occurred when the patient 
was only eight years of age, and we hope to 
show that the dissociating effect of this emotion 
was directly responsible for the mental and 
physical aspects of her hysterical condition. 
While relating these experiences in hypnosis, 
the emotional reaction was quite dramatic. She 
sighed, shivered, grated and gnashed the teeth, 
the whole body trembled, the left arm twitched, 
and the facial muscles became distorted into an 
aspect of agony and fear. Occasionally she 
would scream “ Ghost,” ‘‘ white,” “ that smell.” 
In other words while hypnotized, the patient 
lived over again the harrowing experiences of 


232 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


years previous. On being awakened from hyp¬ 
nosis even in the midst of the state of fear, all 
abnormal symptoms would cease at once (ex¬ 
cept the twitching of the left arm). The pa¬ 
tient had no recollection of either the peculiar 
phenomena during hypnosis or of her narra¬ 
tion of the experiences. The loss of sensation 
on one half of the body persisted even during 
the hypnotic state. 

On several occasions, while she was hypno¬ 
tized, the dissociation became more marked. 
When she was carried back to a period ante¬ 
dating these experiences she did not know where 
she was, had never heard of the ghost episodes, 
and denied all knowledge of contemporaneous 
current events. In fact she was living over her 
early school days again, and once gave a vivid 
account of a fire at school during these early 
days of childhood. While in this latter state 
of her early childhood personality, it was noted 
that the loss of sensation had disappeared and 
all abnormal emotional reaction had ceased. If 
while in this state she was again carried forward 
to the time of the experience, the sensory dis¬ 
turbances not only returned, but the same attack 
of emotional reaction would take place. Here 
we seem to be deahng with the birth of a 
new but temporary personality. Through this 
method of analysis of the mental condition in 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


233 


the hypnotic state, it was furthermore demon¬ 
strated that the twitching of the arms first oc¬ 
curred at the time of the emotional shock. The 
fact that this twitching was absent when the 
hypnotized subject was carried back to a period 
antedating these experiences, and appeared im¬ 
mediately when she was carried forward to the 
experiences again, is a proof of the hysterical 
mechanism in this particular condition. The 
abnormal hysterical phenomena were therefore 
caused by a certain emotional experience, which 
was responsible for the dissociation. 

Analysis by the Association Method 

This case was also analyzed by the associa¬ 
tion method, with the following results: 

In order for retardation to take place in the 
association tests, the emotional experiences which 
cause the mental retardation or slowness must 
be present in the memory of the subject, al¬ 
though it may be suppressed or dormant. How¬ 
ever, after a cure, retardation does not take 
place, even though the experiences are present 
in memory, because the emotion aroused by the 
test word then finds a normal path of discharge. 
The application of these tests to the case of 
Miss F. gave interesting results and showed the 
effect of the emotional experiences upon the 
workings of her mind. In the waking condition, 


234 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


painful test words caused no retardation, be¬ 
cause the patient could not recall her experi¬ 
ences. When these same words were used while 
the patient was in an hypnotic state, where the 
memory of the experiences could be recalled, the 
retardation became very marked. The test 
words were chosen from the emotional experi¬ 
ences and the reaction to all the words showed 
a marked slowness of reaction. These tests 
demonstrated that the experiences acted as a 
strong emotional factor in the hysterical dissocia¬ 
tion, otherwise a slowness of reaction could not 
have taken place. 


Association Tests Before Recovery:—In the waking state, in 
which there was no memory of her experiences} 


Test 

Reaction 

Reaction 

Time 

Test 

Reaction 

Reaction 

Time 

Word 

Word 

(in seconds) 

Word 

Word 

(in seconds) 

White 

Rose 

0.8 

Hand 

Body 

2.8 

Food 

Eat 

1.4 

Smell 

Scent 

3.2 

Bite 

Feeling 

0.8 





It will be noted in the above series, that the 
reaction time is very short, although the words 
used refer directly to the experiences which 
caused the hysterical state. In hypnosis, asso- 

^Only the words referring to the experiences are given. Some 
of the words were taken from details of the emotional experience, 
which it was not thought necessary to relate here. The reaction 
time in this particular case for indifferent words such as “ hungry,” 
“street,” “book,” varied from eight-tenths of a second to three 
seconds. 


ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


235 


ciation tests were again tried, with identical 
words. If the reader will compare this list with 
the one previously given, he will notice that it 
took the patient much longer to give the asso¬ 
ciated word and furthermore, the reaction word 
itself, instead of being an indifferent one, related 
closely to the experiences. 

In the Hypnotic State in Which the Experiences Could Be 

Recalled 




Reaction 


Reaction 

Test 

Reaction 

Time 

Test 

Reaction Time 

Word 

Word 

(in seconds) 

Word 

Word (in seconds) 

White 

Ghost 

6.4 

Hand 

Thing I saw 4. 

Food 

Eat 

12.4 

Smell 

Handkerchief 6.4 

Bite 

What I did 6.8 




After the patient was cured through a syn¬ 
thesis of the dissociated states, the retardation 
time disappeared, both in the waking state and 
in hypnosis. At this place it might be well to 
point out, that after the cure the patient was 
able to recall all details of her experiences while 
in the normal waking condition, whereas previ¬ 
ously this could only be done when the patient 
was hypnotized. 

Association Tests in Both the Waking and Hypnotic State After 

Recovery 


Test 

Reaction 

Reaction 

Time 

Test 

Reaction 

Reaction 

Time 

Word 

Word 

(in seconds) 

Word 

Word 

(in seconds) 

White 

Pink 

2.2 

Hand 

Body 

1.6 

Food 

Eat 

1. 

Smell 

Handkerchief 4. 

Bite 

Feeling 

1.8 





236 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Analysis by the Pulse Reaction Tests 

/ 

When the patient was placed in a state of 
abstraction^ (not hypnotized), by listening to 
a monotonous sound stimulus and asked to think 
of words connected with the experiences for 
which she had no memory, the pulse rate would 
become more rapid, the increase varying from 
four to twelve beats a minute. Indifferent test 
words caused no change in the pulse rate. [See 
Fig. VI.] After a cure through synthesis, this 



Fig. VI.—A portion of the pulse curve in the case of hysteria 
analyzed in the text. Note how sudden rises took place in the 
curve when test words relating to the subject’s emotional ex¬ 
periences were used. These same test words also caused a 
lengthening of the reaction time in the association experiments. 

No. 1 refers to test word white; No. 2, to test word food; 
No. 3, to test word smell; No. 4, to test word bite. 

The numbers above the curve indicate the pulse beats per 
minute. 

increase of the pulse rate failed to take place 
when the same test words were used. [See Fig. 
VII.] It was observed that the same test words 
which caused an increase in the pulse rate 

^ In abstraction, the patient could not recall any of her ex¬ 
periences, but could in hypnosis. Therefore, in a state of abstrac¬ 
tion, these experiences still remained dissociated. 



ANALYSIS OF THE MENTAL LIFE 


237 


also caused a mental slowness in the association 
tests. In a case of multiple personality reported 
by Prince and Peterson ^ it was likewise demon- 



Fig. VII.—A portion of the pulse curve in the same subject given 
in Fig. VI., after recovery. Note how the same test words now 
fail to cause any increase of the pulse rate. The numbers 
below the curve refer to the same test words as in Fig. VI. The 
numbers above the curve indicate the pulse beats per minute. 

strated that electrical reactions took place when 
test words connected with subconscious emo¬ 
tional experiences were used. These experiences 
could not be voluntarily reproduced in con¬ 
sciousness as memory, but appeared in dreams 
or could be reproduced in the hypnotic state. 
It would seem, therefore, that subconscious men¬ 
tal processes can cause electrical reactions and 
pulse variations in the same manner as conscious 
processes. 

How the Hysteria Was Cured 

Since it seemed evident from an analysis of 
this case, that the hysterical condition was due 
to certain dissociated emotional experiences, it 
ought to be possible to cure a case of this kind 


^ “ Experiments in Psycho-Galvanic Reactions from Co- 
Conscious (Subconscious) Ideas in a case of Multiple Personality.” 
—Journal Abnormal Psychology, June-July, 1908, Vol. Ill, No. 2, 




238 EXPLORATION OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


by synthetizing or uniting these dissociated ex¬ 
periences with the normal waking consciousness. 
In other words, the hysterical mischief would 
stop if the split mind were made whole again, 
thus depriving the split-off experiences from 
any further independent activity. In hypnosis 
it was suggested to the patient that on awaken^ 
ing a complete memory of the dissociated ex¬ 
periences would persist. This was finally suc¬ 
cessfully accomplished, the treatment through 
synthesis covering a period of several weeks. 
The patient then remembered all the details of 
the two experiences, and in addition, the loss of 
sensation disappeared, the visual field became 
normal, and no further attacks of twitching took 
place. Furthermore, as previously indicated, 
the time for association of words having an emo¬ 
tional meaning became normal and no further 
increase of the pulse rate took place when these 
same test words were used. Any further nar¬ 
ration of the emotional experiences, either in the 
waking state or in hypnosis, was unaccompanied 
by the emotional reaction previously described. 


PART II 


THE DISEASES OF THE 
SUBCONSCIOUS 




CHAPTER I 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 

The subject of memory is a complex one. 
Only its most essential points can be discussed, 
in order to make clear the chief subject-matter 
of this chapter—namely, the diseases of memory. 
With memory, as with sleep, the biological in¬ 
terpretation has been the most fruitful of re¬ 
sults. What, then, is memory? 

Memory, like irritability and reproduction, is 
one of the phenomena of living matter. Mem¬ 
ory may be defined as the characteristics or 
traces retained by the nervous substance from 
previous reactions or stimuli. Of the exact 
nature of this trace we are in the dark: we 
only know that something is retained and this 
something is reproduced. The reproduction of 
stimuli is usually in the order in which the 
stimuli are stored up, one stimulus leading up 
to or calling forth the next one, in a serial repro¬ 
duction psychologically known as association or 
associative memory. Memory, therefore, can he 
reduced to two simple biological phenomena— 
conservation or storing up of impressions or 

experiences and their later reproduction. Recog- 

241 


242 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

nition and localization in the past are supposed 
to be a part of the act of memory, but these are 
merely the conscious accompaniment of the 
biological reaction. They are unnecessary for 
memory, for, as will be shown later in the course 
of this chapter, memory can exist without either 
localization or recognition. Destroy conserva¬ 
tion and reproduction and memory ceases to 
exist; preserve these and destroy localization 
and recognition, memory is still there as a bio¬ 
logical phenomenon, but without the psychologi¬ 
cal element. 

Let us take a few simple examples of storing 
up and reproduction of physical stimuli and 
apply these to the phenomena of memory. If 
one talks into the plain waxen cylinder of a 
phonograph, then places the cylinder back to its 
starting point and again sets the instrument 
going, the words are produced in the exact order 
in which the cylinder stored them up. This is 
conservation and reproduction from a physical 
standpoint, based upon the laws of sound vibra¬ 
tion produced by the human voice. Take a 
more complex example. Look steadily at a 
bright light for a few seconds, then close the 
eyes, and for a brief interval we perceive the 
sensation of light, after the stimulus which pro¬ 
duced it has ceased to act. In this case, the 
retina of the eye, by virtue of the peculiar con- 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


243 


struction of its nerve elements, has stored up 
those other vibrations which produce light. The 
sensation, however, has outlasted for some little 
time the stimulus which occasioned it, and we 
have what is known in physiology as the retinal 
after-image. This teaches us that one tendency 
of the nerve tissue is to repeat physiologically 
its previous reactions or stimuli. Probably the 
same action but far more complex, takes place 
within the brain in the mechanism of memory. 
Hering has given us a vivid description of the 
biological aspect of memory.^ “It is well 
known that sensuous perceptions, if constantly 
repeated for a time, are impressed into what we 
call the memory of the senses, in such a way 
that often after hours, and even after we have 
been busy with a hundred other things, they sud¬ 
denly return into consciousness in the full, sensu¬ 
ous vivacity of their original perception. We 
thus experience how whole groups of sensations, 
properly regulated in their spatial and temporal 
connections, are so vividly reproduced as to be 
like reality itself. This clearly shows that after 
the extinction of conscious sensations, some ma¬ 
terial vestiges still remain in our nervous sys¬ 
tem, implying a change of its molecular and 
atomic structure, by which the nervous sub- 

* E. Hering: “ Memory and the Specific Energies of the Nervous 
System.” 


244. DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


stance is enabled to reproduce such physical 
processes as are connected with the correspond¬ 
ing psychical processes of sensations and per¬ 
ceptions.” 

For the act of memory two essentials are nec¬ 
essary: first—a nervous system in such a stage 
of development that a brain is present, and 
secondly, the absolute integrity of such a nerv¬ 
ous system or brain. Without the first, memory 
is impossible; if the brain be totally or par¬ 
tially destroyed, either through disease or for 
the purpose of physiological experiment, there 
is either a total or partial loss of memory. For 
instance, in the destruction of a certain portion 
of the brain of man through disease, we may 
have a partial loss of memory for words, known 
as aphasia. On the other hand, a brainless ani¬ 
mal is absolutely without the slightest vestige 
of memory. Take two frogs, one of which has 
been blinded and the other without brain. Place 
both in positions of danger, the blinded frog 
attempts to escape, the brainless frog remains 
quiet, although the danger has reached the point 
of death, because the brainless frog possesses 
no memory of its previous positions of danger. 
Furthermore, it cannot learn anything new, be¬ 
cause memory is necessary for the act of learn¬ 
ing. In Goltz’s famous experiment of the dog, 
from which he removed the brain, the animal 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


245 


showed no spontaneous movements, neither did 
it recognize its master. In certain states of 
dementia where the brain is profoundly diseased 
there is always a marked disorder of memory. 
In some experiments on cats and monkeys, it 
was shown that, when the frontal lobes of the 
brain were destroyed, recently formed habits 
and associations were lost. 

It has been shown that normal memory con¬ 
sists of several elements, some physiological and 
some psychological. Essential are conservation 
and reproduction; non-essential, yet entering 
into the act of memory and completing it, are 
recognition and localization in the past. Con¬ 
servation and reproduction are the physiological 
elements, and for these physiological elements 
or sensations to leave their traces in the nervous 
system it is necessary that they endure a cer¬ 
tain length of time. These sensations as a rule 
outlast for some little time the objective stimu¬ 
lus which occasioned them. This is the explana¬ 
tion of retinal after images to which we previ¬ 
ously referred and it is also this physiological 
mechanism which forms the basis of habits. 
Habits are memories, but unconscious memories, 
because unaccompanied by thought. 

The non-essential elements in memory are 
recognition and localization in the past. All 
localization of past experiences undergoes what 


246 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

we may call ‘‘ foreshortening,” due to the omission 
of large numbers of events by which the present 
is bridged with the past. Without these omis¬ 
sions, recollection would be a tedious act; for 
instance, before we could recall the events of a 
holiday a year ago it would be necessary to fill 
up in consciousness all the details of the inter¬ 
vening gap. We do not do this, however. We 
simply jump the gap. 

In abnormal memory, one or several of its 
elements may be disturbed, producing some 
form of what is known as amnesia. Amnesia 
is an inability to reproduce memories for cer¬ 
tain events. This inability of reproduction may 
be due to actual destruction or to mere dissocia¬ 
tion. If the former, the memory cannot be 
restored through special psychological devices. 
If the latter, restoration in most cases is pos¬ 
sible. For instance, in certain organic brain 
diseases, after epileptic or hysterical attacks or 
convulsions, sometimes following severe blows 
to the head, or after emotional shocks, the mem¬ 
ory for a certain period may be either destroyed 
or dissociated. In an epileptic who came under 
personal observation, a series of convulsive 
seizures was followed by an amnesia of five 
years. In another epileptic, a very slight dizzy 
attack was followed by a loss of memory for 
eighteen days. The memory for this period 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


247. 


was never spontaneously recovered, thus prov¬ 
ing an absolute destruction and not a mere 
dissociation. 

While in an intoxicated condition a man re¬ 
ceived a blow on the head while resisting arrest. 
Following the injury he was unconscious for 
eight or ten hours, and on regaining conscious¬ 
ness found that he was unable to recall any 
events of the week previous. The memories of 
the amnesic period have never spontaneously 
returned, although a period of several years has 
elapsed. His only knowledge of the events of 
that week comes through information gathered 
from friends. None of the memories returned 
in dreams. 

The destruction or dissociation of memory in 
amnesia usually comprises those impressions 
which are least highly organized. According to 
well-recognized laws of association it is just 
such elements which immediately precede the 
physical or psychical injury which are destroyed 
in amnesia, making a condition known as retro¬ 
grade amnesia. These particular groups of 
memories are involved because they are loosely 
organized. Sometimes conservation primarily is 
disturbed; the impressions vanish as soon as re¬ 
ceived, making what is known as continuous 
amnesia, a condition which is very marked in 
senile dementia and in certain cases of alcoholic 


248 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

brain disease. It may be, however, that this 
form of amnesia is only an apparent one—the 
residuals may persist in the nervous system, 
but cannot be consciously reproduced. In 
Janet’s case of Mme. D.,^ for example, the con¬ 
tinuous amnesia followed a severe emotional 
shock. The patient forgot the experiences of 
her everyday life as fast as they occurred. Dur¬ 
ing sleep, however, she called out the names of 
the physicians who attended her during the day, 
thus proving that her dreams had their origin 
in her waking experiences, which must have been 
stored up and left their traces. 

In other cases of amnesia the power of repro¬ 
duction alone is at fault. The experiences or 
impressions are stored up, but voluntary repro¬ 
duction is impossible, a dissociation has taken 
place, although the experiences may be repro¬ 
duced or synthetized through special devices. 
Most cases of amnesia are of this latter type. 

That localization in the past is not a necessary 
concomitant of the act of memory is shown by 
several cases of extensive amnesia, particularly 
in the case of Miss Beauchamp and in the case 
of Susan N. In these cases, isolated memories 
would suddenly flash into consciousness without 
any concomitant time association or the recog- 

^ Pierre Janet; “L’Amneeie Continue .”—Nevroses et Id^es Fixes, 
Vol. I. 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


249 


nition of the memories as portions of the per¬ 
sonal experience. They were mere scrappy and 
fragmentary automatisms, not synthetized with 
the personal consciousness and, therefore, looked 
upon by the subject as strange, unfamiliar, and 
isolated ideas. 

If both recognition and localization are dis¬ 
turbed, there results a distortion or an illusion 
of memory, known as paramnesia. The inter¬ 
esting subject of paramnesia will be briefly dis¬ 
cussed in the course of another chapter. If 
memory for particular concepts is at fault, for 
instance the memories of the sounds of words or 
for the names of things, we have what is known 
as aphasia. 

Amnesias are systematized when they com¬ 
prise all the memories of a period, localized 
when they take in memories of a certain epoch 
of life, and general when the subject has no 
recollection of any of his previous life. Cases 
have been observed that confirm all these types. 

It will be impossible to give an extended 
account of the various cases of amnesia that have 
been studied and published. The reader who 
is interested in the subject may consult the 
bibliographies appended to my papers in the 
Journal of Abnormal Psychology,^ 

*Isador H. Coriat: “The Experimental Synthesis of the Dis¬ 
sociated Memories in Alcoholic Amnesia.”—/ownai Abnormal 


250 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

The Lowell Case of Amnesia throws light on 
many obscure problems of amnesia. Susan N., 
an intelligent middle-aged school-teacher, left 
home on a certain day in March, 1906. Until 
she was later recognized by her relatives in 
August of the same year, her family had abso¬ 
lutely no explanation of her disappearance. 
During this time, however, a number of rather 
startling dramatic episodes occurred, for which 
she later had no recollection. She wandered 
from place to place, adopted various fictitious 
names, such as “ Mrs. Sarah Wilson,’’ “ Mrs. 
Alice Walker,” ‘‘ Margaret Kelly,” and on sev¬ 
eral occasions came into collision with the police 
under rather sensational conditions. Finally an 
attempt at suicide by drowning in the Merrimac 
River, and her rescue in a semi-comatose condi¬ 
tion, led to her being placed in a hospital. On 
her person were found several memoranda, in 
which she gave a fragmentary account of her 
wanderings under the various names she had 
assumed. 

After her rescue from the river, she remained 
in a stupor for a week, and on awakening from 
this state it was found that the memory of the 
events of her whole previous life, from the date 

Psychology, August, 1906; “The Lowell Case of Amnesia.”— 
Journal Abnormal Psychology, August-September, 1907; “The 
Mechanism of Anmesia .”—Journal Abnormal Psychology, 1909. 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


251 


of her birth, was completely obliterated. A 
similar condition of stupor, followed by an ex¬ 
tensive loss of memory, has been reported in 
other cases. For instance, in the Mary Rey¬ 
nolds case, there was a profound sleep from 
which the patient awoke “ to all intents and 
purposes as being ushered for the first time into 
the world.” Likewise in the case of Susan N., 
the educational memories, the names of objects, 
persons, scenes, knowledge of events were gone. 
She retained, however, the knowledge of read¬ 
ing, writing, sewing, and automatic movements. 
The extensive amnesia seemed, therefore, to 
have affected chiefly the higher psychic mem¬ 
ories and spared the lower and more automatic 
acquisitions. After awakening from the stupor 
she learned things anew with an astonishing 
rapidity, thus showing that the mechanism of 
associative memory was not actually destroyed, 
but merely dissociated. This rapidity of ac¬ 
quiring knowledge made it very difficult to 
distinguish between what the patient actually 
remembered and what she had learned since 
awakening from the stupor. Everything she 
read or saw appeared to her as if perceived for 
the first time. For instance, she said, ‘‘ When 
I first saw trees and houses, I never remembered 
having seen them before.” It was necessary to 
teach her the names and uses of ordinary ob- 


252 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

jects. Literature with which she was formerly 
perfectly familiar it was necessary for her to 
relearn. She recognized no one, not even her 
relatives. She gave her name as Margaret 
Kelly, and when addressed as Susan N., paid 
no attention. 

Attempts to restore the memory led to inter¬ 
esting data, proving that the entire life experi¬ 
ence was simply dissociated from her conscious 
perception and not irrevocably destroyed. 
Scrappy, isolated memories would suddenly 
flash into her mind, consisting of verses of 
poetry, strange names, visual memories of per¬ 
sons, places, etc. These were not recognized 
as memories and were not localized in the past, 
but were called “ strange thoughts,” “ wonder¬ 
ments ” by the patient. These peculiar phenom¬ 
ena proved that recognition and locahzation are 
unnecessary for memory. Her dreams consisted 
of episodes of her life from which at present 
she was totally amnesic. A detailed account of 
this dream life as a dissociated state has already 
been given in the chapter on Dreams. Patients 
afflicted with amnesia will frequently dream of 
the experiences which they cannot spontaneously 
recall in their waking condition. 

A few details will make some of these 
phenomena clear. When the attention of the 
patient was distracted by a monotonous sensory 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


253 


stimulus, isolated flashes of memory resulted. 
These I called experimental distraction mem¬ 
ories, and they consisted principally of quota¬ 
tions from popular poets, such as Longfellow 
and Whittier. As all knowledge of literature 
was absent in her present state the quotations 
must have been of the nature of dissociated 
memories, that is, of experiences stored up, in¬ 
capable of conscious reproduction, although syn¬ 
thesis was possible through the devices used. 
Sometimes, without being experimentally in¬ 
duced, for instance, in normal abstraction or 
during reading or conversation, the same 
phenomena would take place, such as the repro¬ 
duction of isolated names or “ vivid memories ’’ 
of towns and cities. These were called spon¬ 
taneous distraction memories. When the sub¬ 
conscious was tapped by automatic writing 
names and quotations were again produced, 
but these also were strange and unfamiliar to 
the patient. 

Fortunately I was present at the visit of an 
old and intimate friend of the patient. This 
furnished an excellent opportunity for the study 
of her reaction to former acquaintances. She 
was unable to recognize this friend, even when 
her name was mentioned and when she was 

f 

brought face to face with her. She reiterated 
“ I don’t remember,” in answer to questions 


254 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

relative to prominent incidents of her childhood 
and early life. She asked the name of some 
nasturtiums brought by her visitor, and did 
not recall having seen similar flowers before. 
When the name “ bobbins ” was used in the 
course of the conversation, she naively inquired, 
“ What are bobbins? ” although she had once 
worked in a mill. 

An analysis of the case showed that we were 
dealing with a functional amnesia, in which the 
higher psychic memories, such as the knowledge 
of objects, places, events, and literature were 
compeltely dissociated, while the lower and more 
organic acquisitions, such as reading, writing, 
speech, co-ordinated movements, were retained. 
In this respect the case is unique of its kind 
from the standpoint of general amnesia. The 
experimental evidence, in this case of Susan N., 
proved that we were dealing with mere isolated, 
disconnected fragments of a wide system of 
experience and knowledge which, in her present 
condition, were entirely dissociated from the 
conscious mental life, incapable of voluntary 
reproduction. 

If certain memories are dissociated, it is often 
possible to restore them through some artiflcial 
method. The restoration of lost memories in 
amnesia and the sudden recollection of a forgot¬ 
ten name have the same mechanism in common. 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


255 


For instance I attempt to recall a name, but try 
as hard as I will, I cannot recollect it. I give 
up the conscious attempt and later, while en¬ 
gaged in conversation or reading, *the name 
flashes into my mind. What has happened? 
The name was there all the time, otherwise I 
could not have recalled it later. This is one of 
the simplest examples of dissociation of con¬ 
sciousness, or more strictly speaking, in this 
case a dissociation of memory. When the at¬ 
tention was distracted by conversation or read¬ 
ing, concentrated upon one point, the name 
flashed into my mind. The conscious inhibition 
of the name had been removed while I was in 
this state of abstraction and the subconscious 
memory of the name flashed into conscious¬ 
ness. In psychological terms it has become 
synthetized, whereas previously it was disso¬ 
ciated. This is the mechanism of the restora¬ 
tion of lost experiences in amnesia reduced 
to its simplest terms. It has been shown that 
this synthesis is possible only where there is 
a dissociation, not where the experiences are 
destroyed. In absent-minded acts where there 
is often a dissociation of memory for the act, 
the memory may also be restored. These disso¬ 
ciations of memory, which clinically are some 
type of amnesia, occur in hysteria, acute alcohol¬ 
ism, sometimes after blows to the head, and 


256 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

occasionally in those episodes of wandering for 
which there is no later conscious recollection, 
known as fugues. The practical results of the 
synthesis of these particular amnesic states is 
one of the triumphs of the theoretical part of 
abnormal psychology, particularly of modern 
investigations into subconscious or dissociated 
mental experiences. The results are best ac¬ 
complished by having the patient listen to a 
monotonous sound stimulus in a quiet, semi- 
darkened room and while he is in a condition of 
perfect relaxation. After one or several trials 
it will be found that isolated experiences flash 
suddenly into consciousness, and by continued 
stimulation these groups become finally fused 
into their chronological order. My first ex¬ 
periments along these lines were performed 
upon alcoholics who had suffered from amnesic 
states as the result of long-continued alcoholic 
indulgence. In the cases which I observed it 
was possible to restore in its entirety the com¬ 
plete amnesic period. Further researches along 
these lines proved the soundness of the applica¬ 
tion of this theory and it was also shown that 
what was true of alcoholic amnesia was true 
of other types of amnesia. As a result of these 
studies, I found that it was possible to divide 
the amnesias into three distinct groups: 

1. Amnesic states in which the dissociation 


LOSSES OF MEMORY 


257 


was of such a nature that a complete experi¬ 
mental synthesis of the lost experiences was 
possible. This group comprises short hysterical, 
epileptic, and alcoholic amnesias, protracted 
fugues (wandering states), and certain types 
of amnesia following cerebral embolism. 

2. Retrograde amnesia, following blows to 
the head, in which the whole or a portion of 
the amnesic period spontaneously cleared up. 

3. Amnesic states in which the memories were 
so completely destroyed or dissociated that 
neither spontaneous restoration occurred nor 
experimental synthesis was possible. In this 
group may be placed protracted epileptic am¬ 
nesias and the retrograde amnesias of cerebral 
concussion not comprised under group 2. 

The amnesia after deep hypnosis, like the 
losses of memory in the states of dissociation, 
is not a real amnesia at all, but only apparent. 
The events of the hypnotic state may be re¬ 
stored by various psychological devices, such as 
crystal gazing and automatic writing; or, the 
patient will recall the events of the hypnosis in 
subsequent hypnotic states. Hysterical losses of 
sensation and paralysis are really localized am¬ 
nesias, a “ forgetting ” of the sensation or move¬ 
ments of a certain limb. 

We learn from these observations, that a loss 
of memory is not synonymous with unconscious- 


258 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


ness. A person may perform many natural but 
complicated acts extending over hours, days, or 
weeks and yet have later no memory for these 
facts. The period is a blank in the mind. Dur¬ 
ing this period, the subject is not in an uncon¬ 
scious state, but rather*in a subconscious state. 
For instance, cases have been reported where a 
subject has left home and no trace could be 
found of him. Later, he suddenly comes to 
himself, in a strange location and engaged in a 
strange occupation. All memory of the period 
since leaving home has vanished. During the 
period, to all outward appearances, he was in a 
normal condition. Yet the memory is not really 
destroyed, but it may be restored by appropriate 
methods. Examples of a loss of memory ex¬ 
tending over several days, in one case with the 
apparent birth of a new personality, will be 
discussed in the next chapter. In both in¬ 
stances, it was possible to permanently restore 
these lost memories through a special device. 


CHAPTER II 


THE RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 

This chapter will be devoted to the study 
of two cases of amnesia in which the lost mem¬ 
ories were successfully restored. The first case 
comprised the events of a delirium, while in the 
second case there was a change of personality, 
during the amnesic period. In the first instance 
it was possible to restore practically every epi¬ 
sode of the lost period, although the amnesia 
had existed for two years before the experiments 
were attempted. During all this time, the pa¬ 
tient, try as she would, could not recall a vestige 
of this lost period of four days. In the restored 
period, there was also obtained a most valuable 
account of the patient’s mental state during this 
four days’ delirium. At first only a few isolated 
fragments were obtained, then larger and larger 
groups without reference to their chronological 
order became firmly synthetized, until finally 
the gaps became filled and there resulted a firm 
and permanent restoration of the four days’ 
period. Where before there was a gap in the 

259 


260 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


patient’s life, this gap became filled through 
these restored memories/ 

Mrs. X. left B. by train, on a journey to 
the city of N. After travelling about an hour 
she experienced a sensation of a sudden snap in 
the head, after which it seemed to her as if the 
train began to sway from side to side and the 
passengers began to change to people with whom 
she had been previously acquainted. After this 
she remembered nothing more for a period of 
nearly five hours. Her next recollection was a 
very hazy memory of finding herself sitting on a 
trunk in the railroad station (the end of her 
destination), then another hazy memory of a 
ride in an ambulance, and finally an entire blank 
of four days^ when she found herself in the ward 
of a hospital. Up to the time that the patient 
came under observation, a period of nearly two 
years, she had never been able to recall the 
events of those amnesic periods. An attempt 
was therefore made to restore these lost mem¬ 
ories, on the supposition that the entire experi¬ 
ence was merely dissociated and not destroyed. 
The attempt was eminently successful, as the 
following data will show. The memory was not 

^ The fragments are given verbatim as they were synthetized, 
so that the reader may have a clear idea of the mechanism of 
the synthesis. The numbers refer to each individual fragment, 
as it entered consciousness, in the order in which they were 
restored, without regard to chronological sequence. 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 


26l 


only restored but with it also came an account 
of the mental state during the delirium. 

The result of the experiments follows: 

1. I remember a picture across the wall from my 
room in B., a picture of an animal, a horrible, uncouth 
animal like a rhinoceros^ with bones or stones in front 
of it.” 

2. ‘‘ A music box that they played in this room— 
between my room and the door of the main hall.” 

3. “ The queer things the train did. I thought it 
was the Asylum and before they took me out, the train 
crashed down a precipice, or seemed to, just like a 
train wreck. I saw the name on the station.” 

After this the memory of her own state of mind which 
while in the train spontaneously returned, “ The 
state of mind was unlike anything I had before this 
delusion, I was always I. My personality, my identity, 
did not change.” 

4. ‘‘ The first seat in the car. At first I had one 
in the back and it seemed later that I had a seat on the 
right hand side of the car looking out of the window. 
I don’t remember changing my seat. The people were 
talking near me and it seemed that what they said in 
some terrible way had reference to me. I didn’t hear 
it, but I thought it. I thought I mustn’t speak—I 
knew it. I hadn’t lost my identity, I could always 
have told my name. Yet I didn’t know where I was 
going or why I was in that car.” 

5. It was on that side that I thought I saw people 
I knew, and in particular a friend who had died. That 


262 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


was one of the things that made me sure I was insane, 
because I remembered that he had died, 

6. “Now I remember the conductor. He came, but 
I couldn’t give him my ticket. I couldn’t use my hands 
at all. I couldn't think how to. He took the ticket 
out of my lap and went away. I had a horrible fear, 
but I thought to myself I would keep still and I think 
I did. I don’t believe I made any outcry or disturb¬ 
ance on that car. I had a dress-suit case with me, 
two magazines, a handbag, and a box of candy. As 
I grew worse, I dropped all care of these things. I sat 
there while the train whirled on. Part of the time it was 
dark, but it was very early—I think it was before 
5 o’clock.” 

7. “ All the memories seem to be of sitting on the 
right hand side of the car with just that horrible fear 
—fear of everything—that some terrible thing had 
happened to my daughter.” 

8. “ I came to myself on the train and gave my 
husband’s name and address. I felt that I had com¬ 
mitted some horrible crime and the name and address 
proved it. I felt as if it was some one else I was talk¬ 
ing about. My memories are quite clear about lying 
on a trunk. I was violent, screamed, struggled, not 
to be held. There was police officers around. I 
thought they were there because of the terrible thing 
I had done.—I thought that I had killed my daughter. 
I felt something clutch my dress and I turned around 
and thought I saw a large stuffed cat. I screamed 
and was afraid and a woman tried to soothe me and 
tried to give me some medicine.” 

9* I can see now the people getting off the car, but 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 


263 


I didn’t move at all. I think some one came and told 
me to get off. All this time I thought someone was 
with me to take care of me—and so I did just as I was 
told. Then I walked along with mj suit case and men 
came running up to me—I think they were hackmen— 
but I thought then that they were just interested in me 
and thought they kept saying ‘ C. C.’—the place where 
I lived, a suburb of Y.” 

10. “ I didn’t even think then where I was going or 
what I was going to do. I couldn’t have told my name 
then.” 

11. “I was at B. Hospital from Tuesday until Fri¬ 
day, but it seemed like one day to me. It is hard to 
distinguish old memories and new ones. I remember 
being questioned by physicians there and asked my 
name and address, which I gave correctly. Then I was 
questioned a good while about my physical condition, 
but I can’t remember just what. I think I tried to 
make myself out insane and I remember being un¬ 
dressed by several nurses and put into a bathtub. The 
nurses all seemed to be people I knew—I called them 
by familiar names and their voices seemed to be 
familiar. I was violent and it took three or four 
nurses to get me to bed. That was in a room to the 
right as the hall is entered. The room seemed to have 
windows like a church—stained glass with rounding 
tops and in the door was a place that could be opened 
for some one to look in. I was terrified in that room 
all the time. There was a vacant bed across and a 
sound of breathing always came from it, as if some one 
were in it. It was a perfectly smooth white bed, unoc¬ 
cupied, and that terrified me more. I heard voices most 



264 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


of the time—voices I recognized—my father’s and my 
sister’s voice. Part of the time the door of my room 
was open and when the nurses passed I called them by 
familiar names, although all the time I recognized that 
they were nurses by their caps. In that room was the 
picture I spoke of—opposite the door, and the picture 
kept changing.” 

12. “ I can’t remember being taken from that room 
to the one across the hall, but I remember being in that 
room across the hall. I remember medicine being given 
to me in that room; I drank it out of a glass, I also 
remember drinking milk that was brought to me there. 
I thought there was some terrible thing that I had done 
and couldn’t remember what it was. There was still 
another room on that same side and I remember being 
dressed and sitting out in the middle part—the hall— 
where the pictures were and an organ or music box 
against the wall. I still thought the patients were 
people whom I knew. But gradually that wore off and 
they began to look just like themselves. I remember a 
physical examination there by a doctor, a young man, 
whose hair was brown, the eyes grayish blue, and the 
whites of the eyes very yellow. He thumped my chest 
and listened to my breathing and after that he gave 
me different things to smell and taste. After I was 
dressed they took me into the anteroom and I saw 
my husband and daughter there. I looked at the clock 
—it was 9.15 A. M. Then when they took me back I 
was better, I didn’t think any more of the horrible 
things I had done to my daughter, because after I had 
seen her I knew that she was all right, but I began to 
think then that other people were harming her. I 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 265 

remember being taken out to my husband and daughter 
again and I said, after looking at the clock, ‘ It was 
9.15 when you were here before ’—it was then 5 o’clock. 
It wasn’t the same day, although it seemed like it to 
me. It seems to me as though they took me to the M. 
Hospital after they left me the last time.” 

It will be noted that the memory was restored 
in isolated fragments without any reference to 
their order of occurrence. By continued tap¬ 
ping or stimulation of the subconscious mental 
life, larger and larger groups of memories en¬ 
tered consciousness. Finally the entire gap of 
the four days’ loss of memory became bridged. 
The restored memories have remained perma¬ 
nent and there is no longer a blank period in 
the patient’s mind. In this case the patient was 
in an abnormal mental state during the four 
days and she was unable later to recall volun¬ 
tarily the events of this period. Hence the am¬ 
nesia arose, an amnesia of dissociation and not 
of destruction, otherwise the lost memories could 
not have been restored. 

In the second case, up to the time of his 
amnesia, the patient was always a healthy man 
and of strictly temperate habits. During a 
slight illness he remained in bed one day, but 
did not remember getting up or dressing. He 
had a faint recollection, however, that about 
10 A.M. he was told by liis mother that she was 


266 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

going out for a while and that if he felt hungry 
he would find some breakfast on the back of 
the kitchen stove. The patient remembered 
nothing more until he found himself in a hos- • 
pital in N. three days later, and although 
he was well known in his own neighborhood, 
no one saw him leave his house on the par¬ 
ticular morning he disappeared. When he came 
to himself in the hospital he did not know 
where he was, but he later learned the name of 
the hospital. He did not know whether he 
came to himself suddenly, or out of a normal 
sleep, but in the course of an hour or two he 
realized his condition. He left B. on Thurs¬ 
day, was admitted to the hospital on Sunday. 
Thus there was an absolute amnesic period of 
three days. According to the hospital report 
he seemed nervous and dejDressed on admission, 
and gave his name, age, occupation, and address 
incorrectly. Here we have an example of the 
birth of an apparently new personality. 

I first saw the patient three weeks after 
his return home. During this time not even 
the slightest detail of the amnesic period had 
spontaneously returned. He would frequently 
lie awake at night in an attempt to recall 
these lost experiences, but without success; 
neither had there been any dreams relating to 
these. 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 267 


Thus we see that we are dealing with a loss 
of memory and a change in personality in which 
many complicated but natural acts were per¬ 
formed, the whole period being dissociated from 
consciousness, thus producing a complete am¬ 
nesia. It was only when psychological methods 
were used, that the lost memories could be re¬ 
stored. An account of these restored memories 
follows as given in the patient’s own words: 

“ It seems as though I could realize the conductor or 
brakeman with the lantern on his arm going around 
for tickets, and then it is as though there was a depot 
and a crowd. It seemed to me as if I walked and kept 
on walking, not knowing where. 

“ I got mixed up with a cabman, he was quite a short 
man compared with me. I walked a long distance be¬ 
fore I got a cab. Then I seemed to be riding with the 
cabman and we went over a bridge. I can’t seem to 
remember getting rid of that cabman. It seems as 
though I was walking when it was coming on dark. I 
fully realized it was getting dark. I remember going 
to some place and eating. I think I ate steak and I 
think there were hot biscuits there and I had a glass of 
milk. I remembered giving the waitress a bill, and I 
remember buying a cigar there directly after I paid the 
bill. It seems as though I went out on the street and 
bought a newspaper—I don’t know the name of it, and 
I put it in my pocket. I can recollect being in a theatre 
—there were different varieties, and I can recall one or 
two acts. I recollect two fellows coming out in a 


268 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


German dialect and the second one was a fellow and 
girl in a trapeze act. I can remember looking at the 
paper while I was in the theatre. I can’t recall what 
I read, but there was something startling in it about 
a train wreck. I remember coming out of the theatre 
with the crowd and I went into a barber shop with a 
tobacco store connected and bought some more cigars 
and made inquiries about a room. I didn’t receive any 
definite reply from them. It seems as though they 
told me to go farther down, quite a distance, and one 
of the fellows came to the door and pointed in the direc¬ 
tion. I can remember a woman leading me to a room. 
I could hardly understand her talk; she was an oldish 
woman. I remember going into another lunchroom 
after I left the cigar store. A crowd in an automobile 
came into the restaurant directly after me. It was in 
that restaurant that I was told where I could get a 
room. They all had a foreign accent as though they 
were Germans. The man in the restaurant pointed 
out the hotel to me. It was at the corner of the street. 
It was a kind of boarding house. I remember the old 
woman showing me the bathroom and asking me 
several questions—if I wished to be called at any cer¬ 
tain time, etc. She explained to me the rules of the 
house and showed me how to turn on the electric light 
in the hallway. I have just a faint recollection of 
retiring, but I remember raising the window before I 
lay down to sleep. I tossed in bed nearly all night, 
and did not fall asleep until daybreak. I can recall 
the sweeping in the next room and the woman must 
have heard me, because she came to the door and asked 
if I were up and how I felt. It struck me that she 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 


2d9 


must have noticed that I did not look well. I dressed 
myself, but felt weak and sick. I then called her and 
she came into the room. I asked if I appeared sick, 
and she replied ‘ yes,’ and then I asked for nourish¬ 
ment, something to eat. She said that as soon as she 
was through with her work she would bring me some¬ 
thing. She advised me to return to bed and she would 
attend to my wants. I can remember her coming in 
with some broth in a bowl, and she also brought some 
eggs in a glass. I can remember drinking a cup of 
tea. I remember then, although I felt weak, that I 
thought the fresh air would do me more good and I 
dressed. I changed my mind and undressed again and 
finally again 2 made up my mind I’d go out. I re¬ 
member going out—I remember making a study of the 
place. I don’t remember the number, but I know it 
was at the corner of two streets. I made a note of the 
name of the street on a small card, but I can’t recall it 
now. There was a big tailoring establishment on the 
comer, and the house had a sort of a brownstone front. 
You had to go up a dozen or more steps to the door. 
I can recollect walking a long distance and was so 
tired that I felt inclined to eat. I remember going 
into a restaurant, but when I sat down I took only a 
light stew. I believe it was one of the courses served, 
but I felt sick and didn’t eat any more. When I left 
the restaurant I felt tired, so I boarded a car and rode 
quite a long distance. I remember getting out and 
going into a barbar shop. 

“ I can recall getting into a car that night after I 
left the barber shop and getting off at a theatre. I 
got into line with a number of people and waited a long 


270 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


while. I can recollect buying two tickets for a fellow 
that was ahead of me, as he didn’t think they’d sell him 
all the tickets he wished. He said he had friends and 
later he and his friends sat aside of me. I went into 
the theatre and I can recall some acts. There was 
a fight with cow-boys and Indians on an extra large 
stage and later a scene in which persons would dive 
into the water and disappear. I can recall a girl get¬ 
ting into a boat that already had several men in it, 
and the boat sank out of sight under the water. I 
went out before the show was over and asked an officer 
in the balcony of the theatre the best way to get to 
the address I had on the card. He told me to go to 
the corner and I’d find an officer there. I didn’t find 
the officer, and so walked quite a distance until finally 
I did meet one and he directed me down some streets. 
He told me I could get a car which would bring me in 
that direction, but that I would have to transfer. I 
can remember the conductor stopping the car and giv¬ 
ing me a check. I only waited a minute when the car 
came along and it brought me to the door of the house. 
I started to go in but changed my mind and went into 
a restaurant. I remember having an oyster stew and 
they gave me some large crackers, such as I had never 
seen before. From there I went back to my room and 
opened the window. It was raining hard. There was 
some talk in the room next to me, it sounded like the 
voices of two or three men. I remember undressing 
and lying down, but I did not sleep. I would get up 
and take a paper and read and return to bed again. 
In that way I passed the night. In the morning I 
can remember the woman rapping at the door and giv- 


RESTORATION OF LOST MEMORIES 


271 


ing me a towel. She asked me how I felt and I told 
her that I didn’t feel well. She said there was a doctor 
a short distance down the street and that she would 
either send for him or I could go there myself. I 
didn’t go to the doctor, but it seems to me as though 
she mentioned a hospital and I left the house with one 
of the boarders. I think he went to the hospital with 
me, although they say there that I entered alone. 
This was about midday. I felt weaker and weaker, 
started to ask some questions, but they advised me to 
keep quiet and not to worry. They placed me to bed 
in a room and darkened the room. I think I saw the 
doctor and he examined me. I slept well that night 
and the following morning he came in and asked me 
how I felt. He then said that I needed rest for a few 
days or a week, and again advised me to keep quiet and 
not to worry. They brought breakfast to me, but every 
opportunity I had I would ask some questions. I re¬ 
mained in that room until I came to my senses. Sleep 
brought me to my senses and it struck me that I was 
in a strange place. Then my first object was to re¬ 
turn home.” 

Attempts to obtain the patient’s personal con¬ 
ception of himself during this amnesic fugue 
and also the reason for giving an incorrect name 
on entering the hospital were unsuccessful. 
Some portions of the revived memories were 
dream-like, others appeared like natural recol¬ 
lections. 


CHAPTER III 


ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY 

The memory may play us other tricks be¬ 
sides mere forgetting. It may make us believe, 
in spite of ourselves, that we had previously 
lived through an experience which we are cer¬ 
tain occurred for the first time. In a previous 
chapter we saw that normal memory consists 
of several elements. These essential elements 
were conservation (storing up) and reproduc¬ 
tion; the non-essential elements were recogni¬ 
tion and localization in the past. Memory may 
be present without the non-essential elements, 
but without the essential elements it ceases to 
exist. In certain pathological disturbances of 
memory we particularly saw that neither recog¬ 
nition nor localization in the past was a neces¬ 
sary concomitant in the act of memory, for 
isolated memories could suddenly flash into con¬ 
sciousness without either localization or a recog¬ 
nition of the memories as a portion of a per¬ 
sonal experience. When either conservation or 
reproduction was at fault, however, we could 
have the various clinical types of amnesia. 

273 


ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY 


273 


When localization in the past and recognition 
are at fault, present happenings are sometimes 
mistaken for previous experiences, the memory 
becomes distorted and plays us tricks. We 
refer to this trick as an illusion of memory, a 
false memory, or technically as paramnesia. 
As amnesia is due to some disturbance of stor¬ 
ing up or reproduction, so paramnesia is a 
fault of recognition and localization. 

We may be in doubt if we have seen a certain 
landscape or experienced a certain situation or 
sensation before, and yet all the time we may feel 
certain that the experience is new and could not 
under any circumstance have previously hap¬ 
pened. This sense of what is called familiarity 
may reach a point when even absolutely new 
experiences seem familiar and old. The sense 
of time may also become disturbed, so that 
new experiences may be localized in the remote 
past. The French writers have called this dis¬ 
turbance of memory the “ deja vu ” or the 
“ already seen.” In contrast with this feeling 
of the “ already seen ” there may be a sense of 
strangeness, of newness, in familiar places, a 
kind of a feeling of the “never seen.” These 
illusions of memory are found not only in cer¬ 
tain abnormal mental states, but also in every¬ 
day life, and to a greater or less extent have 
caught the fancy of writers and so have per- 


274 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


vaded the literature. The late Lafcadio Hearn 
has also given us a most vivid account of the 
illusions of his memory. He says, ‘‘To the 
same psychological category possibly belongs 
likewise a peculiar feeling which troubled men’s 
minds long before the time of Cicero and trou¬ 
bles them even more betimes in our own genera¬ 
tion,—the feeling of having already seen a place 
really visited for the first time. Some strange 
air of familiarity about the streets of a foreign 
town or the forms of a foreign landscape comes 
to the mind with a sort of a soft, weird shock 
and leaves one vainly ransacking memory for 
interpretations.” 

The exact reason for these strange tricks of 
memory is very difficult to determine. These 
illusions of memory may recur as a transitory 
phenomenon in everyday life and are some¬ 
times associated with a temporary feeling of 
depersonalization. They may also be present as 
a prominent symptom in some form of alcoholic 
insanity, epilepsy, the insanity of old age (senile 
dementia), in some paranoiac states, and occa¬ 
sionally in hysteria. In their occurrence in both 
normal and abnormal mental states, they show 
a striking resemblance to some subconscious 
phenomena. Both may be temporary disin¬ 
tegrations. of the personal self occurring in 
everyday life and both may become more 


ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY 


275 


complex and thus become pathological mental 
phenomena. 

What, then, is the cause of these strange illu¬ 
sions of memory? Many theories have been 
proposed, but none seems to explain the exact 
mechanism.^ The whole subject is a rather 
confusing one, but probably the most satis¬ 
factory explanation is that the illusions are 
probably due to the fact that a transitory first 
impression of a scene or situation becomes imme¬ 
diately and partially dissociated from the per¬ 
sonal consciousness. There follows a rapid re¬ 
covery from this dissociated state and on again 
perceiving the object or scene, a sense of recog¬ 
nition’ and familiarity arises. This sense of 
familiarity may present all grades, from ex¬ 
treme vagueness to startling distinctness. Syn¬ 
thesis seems to be absent and it is this lack of 
synthesis which causes the illusion of the “ al¬ 
ready seen.” For instance, in looking over a 
newspaper, we may give a hasty but forgotten 
glance at an account of a current event. But 
is it really forgotten? The impression pro¬ 
duced may become immediately dissociated, pass 
out of consciousness, only apparently forgotten 
like the functional amnesias. But if we should 

*For an account of the various theories of paramnesia the 
reader is referred to my paper on “ Some Recent Literature on 
Paramnesia .”—American Journal of Psychology, October, 1905. 


276 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


happen to return again to the same account with 
a more complete measure of attention a syn¬ 
thesis will be formed. In the more attentive 
re-reading of the passage it will seem as if we 
had read of the same event before, but how or 
when we cannot tell. 

These illusions of memory have been studied 
by various observers. In one case the phenome¬ 
non, as in all reported cases, was immediate and 
instantaneous, before the patient had time to 
examine the persons or objects in detail. Here 
the illusion followed an epileptie delirium. To 
anyone who approached the patient for the first 
time, the patient said, “ I know you. I have 
already seen you here. I was here in the same 
bed and same ward. I am not able to say when 
this was, but I am certain I was here before. 
You have spoken to me the same as you do 
to-day.” When taken for the first time into the 
laboratory, she claimed to have seen all the in¬ 
struments at this alleged previous visit. In 
another case the patient claimed to have previ¬ 
ously dreamed events which had occurred for 
the first time. 

In a personal study of some cases of param¬ 
nesia occurring in a form of alcoholic insanity,^ 
isolated events in the patient’s present memory 

^ “ Reduplicative Paramnesia .”—Journal of Nervous and Mental 
Disease/’ 1904. 


ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY 277 

were impressed upon him as a repetition of previ¬ 
ous events. In other words, everything seemed 
doubled or reduplicated, and for this reason the 
condition was called reduplicative paramnesia. 
One of the patients had the illusion that another 
person of the same name was formerly in the 
same hospital, that he had visited him several 
times and that he bore a minute physical re¬ 
semblance to him, even down to the detail of 
the amputation of identical fingers of the same 
hand. He furthermore stated that the hospital 
grounds, buildings, wards, nurses, etc., were 
familiar to him because of this former visit. 
Other cases showed the same duplication of 
events with the minutest details. The phenome¬ 
non was interpreted as due to a doubling of 
memory images in consciousness, but as the pa¬ 
tients were not aware of the doubling, the illu¬ 
sions were looked upon as actual events. 

A stenographic report of a portion of a con¬ 
versation in a subject with illusions of memory,, 
will explain better than any description, this 
curious disturbance. An examination of this 
patient’s physical condition, including tests for 
sensation and the reflexes, had been made a week 
previously. The patient had never been in the 
hospital before and, therefore, his minute de¬ 
scription of an alleged previous residence there, 
was a pure illusion. This illusion of memory 


278 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


was a condition due to disease, and not the 
result of a deliberate fabrication. 

Up to the time that the illusions of memory 
suddenly appeared during a spontaneous re¬ 
mark, there had been no suspicion of any dis¬ 
turbance of this kind. The following is an 
account of the illusion: 

“ One day the subject spontaneously said, ‘ I was here 
in this hospital four years ago for typhoid fever ’ 
(incorrect). 

Q. For how long? A. About two months. 

Q. Who was your doctor? A. I don’t know. 

Q. Describe him? A. A little black mustache. 

Q. In what ward were you? A. A hospital ward. 

Q. What did it look like? A. It had photographs 
and battleships on the walls, and they worked the 
biograph on me to see how much I could stand. 

Q. Did the hospital resemble this? A. Not exactly, 
there is a lot of new things here. 

Q. Is this the same hospital? A. Yes. 

Q. Was I a doctor there? A. I don’t know for 
sure, but I think you were. 

Q. Did I look the same as now? A. No, you only 
had a little mustache then. 

Q. What is my name? A. I forget. 

Q. What did I do to you? A. Cured me. 

Q. Did I examine you? A. Every way, and you 
said you would make a good man of me. And you 
examined my feet and legs and arms with a hammer. 
You stuck me in those places. Then you swung my 


ILLUSIONS OF MEMORY 


279 

feet, too (referring to the physical examination a week 
previously). 

Q. What ward were you in before? A. I guess this 
ward. 

Q. All the time? A. No, I was in the hospital ward 
for awhile. 

Q. Since coming here this time have you been in this 
ward all the time? A. No. 

Q. In what other ward were you? A. Hospital 
ward. 

Q. Did it resemble the hospital ward you were in 
before? A. Yes. 

Q. How many nurses there? A. Four or five 
(three). 

Q. Are you sure that you have been in this hospital 
before? A. I am sure of that; I was here two months.” 

At a later examination nothing of the above 
could be elicited. The patient had a vague re¬ 
membrance of the physical examination, but 
he placed it at his alleged previous residence in 
the hospital. He had been in the infirmary 
(“hospital”) ward for some time and the 
period during which he was in bed in the in¬ 
firmary ward, and also the ward itself, he 
reduplicated in all his statements. In addition 
there was also a prolongation of the time sense. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 

It has been shown by numerous investigators 
that multiple personalities present various de¬ 
grees of organization of the secondary person¬ 
alities, from the simplest to the most complex. 
For convenience they may be divided into three 
prominent groups: 

1. Secondary personalities may develop as 
hypnotic phenomena. These may be called 
abortive personalities. To this group also be¬ 
long some of the subconscious states of auto¬ 
matic writing. Compared with the more fully 
developed forms these types are the most sim¬ 
ple ; they are really artificially dissociated 
groups of memories without the development 
of a new ego. Examples of this class are the 
state called “Mamie” in Prince’s case of Mrs. 
R., Janet’s cases of Madame B., Lucie, and 
Marceline R., and finally the case of Mrs. Y., 
which constitutes the present chapter. It is 
extremely doubtful if, in any of these cases, a 
new personality would have developed, if the 

280 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 281 

subject was not already in a state of partial 
mental dissociation. 

2. The more complex forms, such as Mile. 
Helene Smith reported by Professor Flournoy 
(“From India to the Planet Mars ”), and Mrs. 
“ Smead,” studied by Professor Hyslop. Both 
these cases showed automatic writing with sub¬ 
conscious fabrications, the communications giv¬ 
ing alleged accounts of life on the planet Mars, 
frequently in a highly imaginative and fabricat¬ 
ing Martian language. 

3. The most highly developed forms, with 
the development of a new ego resembling, 
outwardly at least, a normal mental hfe. To 
this group belongs Dr. Prince’s case of Miss 
Beauchamp. 

These groups are not distinct, however, for 
there is a decided overlapping of types. Phe¬ 
nomena such as automatic writing, crystal 
visions, and gaps in the memory (amnesia), 
which are present in the most simple dissocia¬ 
tions may also present in the most complex. 
Before passing to the study of Mrs. Y. it will 
be well for the sake of clearness to give a brief 
account of some of the cases belonging to group 
1 of secondary personalities. We will then be 
able to comprehend more clearly the interesting 
phenomena presented by Mrs. Y. as the hyp- 


282 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

notic dissociation pre-eminently accounted for 
the development of her secondary personalities. 

In Dr. Prince’s case of Mrs. R./ there de¬ 
veloped a hypnotic personality who called her¬ 
self “ Mamie.” The normal self was called 
“ Annie.” ‘‘ Mamie ” knew ‘‘ Annie,” but 
“ Annie ” had no knowledge of “ Mamie.” 

Janet ^ reports the case of a poor peasant 
woman, Madame B., who had been repeatedly 
hypnotized for years. Finally two personalities 
developed, a normal waking one known as 
Leonie, and a hypnotic personality who called 
herself Leontine. Leonie was serious, sad, calm, 
slow, and timid, while Leontine, on the contrary, 
was restless, gay, vivacious, and noisy. In a 
deeper hypnotic state, a third personality ap¬ 
peared, known by the name of Leonore. Of 
the same class is Janet’s Marceline R., who suf¬ 
fered from severe hysterical vomiting in her 
normal state, but when the patient was hypno¬ 
tized the vomiting ceased. 

In our case of Mrs. Y. it was possible to 
demonstrate four distinct personalities. For 
several years she had suffered from an hys¬ 
terical paralysis which had resisted all forms of 
treatment, and it was finally determined to try 

^ Morton Prince: “ Some of the Revelations of Hypnotism.”— 
Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, 1890. 

“Pierre Janet: “ L’Automatisme Psychologique.” 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 283 

hypnotic suggestion, in the hope of effecting a 
cure. At first there was no suspicion of the 
presence of the interesting phenomena about to 
be described. Suddenly and spontaneously, 
however, during the course of treatment, a new 
personality developed in one of the hypnotic 
states and on further hypnotization three other 
distinct personalities were added to this one, 
making four in all. The unravelling of the 
three last personalities was altogether as unex¬ 
pected as the development of the first. These 
new personalities persisted only during the hyp¬ 
notic state. When the patient was awakened 
she immediately reverted to her normal condi¬ 
tion without memory of the hypnotic personal¬ 
ities. The case also showed other interesting 
phenomena of dissociation of consciousness, such 
as the presence of crystal visions, subconscious 
perception of stimuli, and the development of 
hallucinations while the patient was half asleep 
and half awake (hypnagogic state). In order 
that the reader may clearly grasp the evolution 
of these spontaneous hypnotic personalities, it is 
absolutely necessary that the main events of the 
patient’s life be given in full detail. Other¬ 
wise, much that is clear and definite will remain 
obscure. 

The patient was born in England and came 
to America when she was fourteen years of age. 


284 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

Two years later she entered college and re¬ 
mained there several years. At the age of 
eighteen she married a man whose conduct to¬ 
wards her was brutal and neglectful. The 
patient had six children, one of whom (E.), 
her favorite daughter, died in November, 1901, 
after a protracted illness. During ten years 
of her married life (from 1889 to 1899) her 
husband was in the hotel business in the city of 
P. He deserted her shortly after the death of 
her favorite daughter. The following two years 
she was superintendent of a certain society in 
L., and later became matron of an institution, 
a position which she retained until February, 
1904. During this time she also did some liter¬ 
ary work. Both sources of income being insuf¬ 
ficient to sustain herself and her children, she 
was compelled to place them later in an asylum. 
Immediately afterw^ards she became ill and it 
was necessary to undergo a severe surgical opera¬ 
tion by Dr. J. of L. On the night of her daugh¬ 
ter’s funeral the patient was taken suddenly ill 
and remained in bed for three weeks, experiencing 
a severe sense of exhaustion. The exhaustion 
continued, the right arm would occasionally be¬ 
come numb and cold and the limbs grew weaker 
and weaker. Thus we see that a series of severe 
emotional shocks extending over several years 
was followed by a group of symptoms very 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 285 

\ 

suggestive of neurasthenia. Instead of improv¬ 
ing, these symptoms gradually became worse 
and were aggravated during the next few years 
by her financial condition, overwork, and worry 
about her children. She was finally admitted 
to a sanitarium in July, 1905. During the first 
few months in the sanitarium she suffered from 
sleeplessness, depression, weakness, severe and 
almost continual headaches, and pains in the 
limbs, in fact, nearly all the classical symptoms 
of neurasthenia or nervous exhaustion. In ad¬ 
dition, she had several fainting spells. Six 
months after admission there developed com¬ 
plete paralysis of both lower extremities and 
of the right arm, with complete loss of sensa¬ 
tion (anaesthesia) in all the paralyzed members. 
Nausea and vomiting were almost persistent. 
The field of vision in the right eye became much 
limited. She became irritable and cranky and 
made unreasonable demands of the nurses and 
of her physician. At times she was delirious 
and suffered from hallucinations of hearing and 
a fear of receiving personal injury at the hands 
of imaginary individuals. After remaining in 
the sanitarium for a year, she was removed to a 
private home, and from there she was taken to 
the hospital where I saw her, and where the 
following experiments and studies were made: 

The patient was a bright, intelligent woman, 


286 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

without any defect of intellect or memory. 
Both lower limbs and the right arm were para¬ 
lyzed and completely anaesthetic. It will be 
unnecessary to give the other details of the 
physical examination. It is sufficient to state 
that everything absolutely pointed to the fact 
that the patient was suffering from a functional 
(hysterical) paralysis. Hypnosis was used in 
an attempt to cure this paralysis. On the first 
few attempts, the patient went into a deep 
hypnotic state with total amnesia (loss of 
memory), for this state, on awakening. In 
the waking state, when the anaesthetic arm was 
touched or lightly tapped a definite number of 
times (three, four, and six), the patient’s eyes 
being meanwhile tightly closed, and the patient 
was asked to state the first number that came 
into her mind, in every case this corresponded 
to the number of taps or touches made. Al¬ 
though the experiment was frequently repeated, 
in order to avoid error and coincidence, the reac¬ 
tion remained the same. 

Here we have a pertinent example of the per¬ 
sistence of subconscious perceptions. In other 
words, the severe anaesthesia was merely a func¬ 
tional one, and the patient subconsciously 
counted the number of stimuli, although con¬ 
sciously unable to feel them. After the patient 
had been hypnotized a number of times, the 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 287 


first of the hypnotic personalities suddenly and 
spontaneously developed under the following 
conditions. On a number of previous occasions 
when the patient w’^as addressed while in the hyp¬ 
nosis, she always gave relevant answers, had a 
perfectly clear comprehension of her surround¬ 
ings, knew the date and where she was. On 
this occasion, however, while the patient was in 
the hypnotic state, a new personality had de¬ 
veloped, which we shall designate by A. In 
this personality the patient believed she was in 
England, shortly after her marriage. The de¬ 
tails follow in the form of questions and an¬ 
swers, the form in which the notes were taken, as 
indicating more clearly than any description, the 
peculiar mental state which had developed. 

Personality A, 

Patient in a deep hypnosis. 

Q. Where are you? A. With mother in London. 

Q. Is this London? A. Yes. 

Q. What month is this? A. December—when I 
was married. 

Q. What year? A. 1887. 

Q. How old are you? A. I was married at 
eighteen 

Q. Are you eighteen years old now? A. Yes. 

Q. Have you any children? A. I am to have a 
baby soon. 

Q. Where are you living? A. In a beautiful hom^*- 


288 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Q. In what city are you living? A. D.- on the 

south coast—in a pretty cottage there. 

Q. What is your name? A. It is Mrs. Y., now. 

Q. How long have you been married? A. Since 
last December. 

Q. How old are you? A. Eighteen. I told the 
minister that I ran away from home and school. 

On being awakened the patient remembered 
nothing of the above conversation, gave her 
correct age and the age of her children, and 
when confronted with some of the facts elicited 
from personality A., seemed surprised at the 
physician’s knowledge. 

Personality B. 

Several days later the patient was again hypno¬ 
tized. In this state which we call B. the patient 
believed that she was living in the city of P. 
(United States) during the years 1889 to 1899. 
There was no knowledge of subsequent events. 

Q. How old are you? A. Just married. 

Q. But how old are you? A. My father will tell 
you (irritably). 

Q. Are you in good health? A. Oh, yes. 

Q. Is your arm paralyzed? A. Of course it is not. 
You know it is not. 

Q. Then move it. A. I can move it as well as my 
other arm. (She makes a vain effort to move the 
paralyzed right arm.) 



THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 289 


Q. What city is this? A. P. (sighing). 

Q. Did you ever hear of - Hospital in B.? A. 

Why, no (referring to the hospital where the patient 
is at present). 

Q. How many children have you? A. Two. 

Q. How old is the eldest? A. Three years. 

Q. What month is this? A. The twelfth of May. 

Q. How old are you? A. Twenty years. 

Q. What are you doing in the city of P.? A. In 
the Hotel. 

Q. Who is the proprietor? A. My husband, of 
course. 

Q. Were 3 T 0 U ever a patient in any hospital? A. 
No, I was always too well to be a patient anywhere. 

Q. Did you ever hear of President McKinley? A. 
No—but I remember Garfield, who was assassinated. 

Q. Who is the ruler of England? A. Queen 
Victoria. 

Q. Ever hear of the-Sanatarium? (The Sana- 

tarium where the patient was ill during the years 
1905—1906.) A. Never. 

Q. How long have you been married? A. Three or 
four years. 

At this point the patient awoke suddenly, 
with no recollection of the above conversation. 
She was hypnotized two days later and the B. 
personality again appeared. At this time she 
was irritable and cranky, refused to talk at first, 
stating that she did not talk to strangers, say¬ 
ing, “ I don’t recognize your voice.” In neither 




290 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


of these personalities did the paralysis or loss 
of sensation disappear, a phenomenon which was 
observed in other cases with the development of 
hypnotic personalities. 

t 

Personality C. 

In this personality, the patient believed she 
was in the Institution during the years 1902- 
1904. 

Q. Where are you? A. This is the Institution. 

Q. In what city? A. B. 

Q. What are you doing here? A. What am I doing 
here? (surprised)—I came from another institution 
in L. 

Q. But what are you doing here? A. I am super¬ 
intendent. 

Q. How long have you been here? A. Two years. 

Q. Are you in the Institution at present? A. Yes. 

Q. Who am 1? (Dr. C.) A. I think you are 
Dr. J. 

Q. Were you a patient in a sanatarium? A. Never. 

Q. Did you ever hear of-Hospital? (where the 

patient is at present.) A. Yes. 

Q. Have you ever been there as a patient? A. No. 

Q. What year is it? A. I don’t know. 

Q. Do you know the month? A. I can’t tell if it is 
summer or not. (In reality it was February.) 

Q. Are you in good health? A. Always well, but I 
am tired, I don’t go to bed until morning. 



THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 291 

Q. What time is it now? A. It is night—about 
three o’clock. (Incorrect.) 

Q. What are you doing now? A. I am writing, I 
can’t be bothered talking (irritably), I have no time. 
I write for a domestic column in a paper. 

Q. Are you in your room at the Institution? A. 
Yes. 

Q. Are you awake? A. Of course I’m awake (sur¬ 
prised). I could not write if I were asleep. 

Urged to make an attempt to write with the right 
hand, she is unable to do so. 

Q. What year is it? A. I think it is 1904). 

Q. Isn’t it 1907? A. No. 

Q. How many children have you? A. Six, E. is 
dead. 

The patient was hypnotized several days later 
and on this occasion Personality C. reappeared, 
although some further details developed. She 
believed that she was in the city of L., in the 
office of Dr. J., the physician who had per¬ 
formed several surgical operations on the pa¬ 
tient. Only the more important details of this 
other phase of Personality C. will be given, in 
order to show how vividly this particular state 
was enacted and how dominant was the dissocia¬ 
tion. All the answers were given quickly and 
in a tone of voice which showed that the patient 
was hurried and resented any effort to detain 
her. Further, when speaking of her husband’s 


292 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


conduct towards her, the attitude was one of 
hate and disgust, mingled with surprise that 
Dr. J. should be ignorant of all the facts. It 
is well to state that at this time she mistook me 
for Dr. J. 

Q. How do you feel now? A. Tired, I’ve been on 
a case all day. Dr. J., you know all about the case. 
Oh, Dr. J., will you give me something for that pain? 
Do you think I’ve taken cold? 

Q. Who am I? (Dr. C.) A. Why—Dr. J. 

Q. What city is this? A. L. 

Q. What place is this? A. Dr. J.’s office. Oh, Dr. J., 
give me something, please. I must catch that four 
o’clock train. 

Q. For where? A. B. 

Q. Where are you located in B. ? A. At the Institu¬ 
tion. 

Q. Are you with your husband? A. Why, Dr. J., 
you know all about it. You ask such silly questions. 
Don’t you remember? 

Q. What time of day is it? A. It is ten to four. 
Didn’t you say so? I don’t want you to take me down 
to the train. I can walk myself. There is an awful 
blizzard going on now, everything is blocked up. I 
have to catch the four o’clock train. 

At this point the patient suddenly awoke 
with a start. There was absolutely no recol¬ 
lection of what had taken place during hypnosis. 
This personality, more than the others, was full 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 293 

of activity. The patient actually seemed to live 
over again certain incidents of her past life. 
Immediately after the patient awoke from this 
last hypnotic state, some experiments in crystal 
gazing were carried out, with results as detailed 
in the chapter on crystal gazing. Some of the 
experiences detailed in this hypnotic state were 
reproduced as a crystal vision. 

Personality D, 

Hypnotized several days later and Personal¬ 
ity D. appeared, in which the patient believed 
she was in the same Sanitarium where the hys¬ 
terical paralysis developed. This was during 
the years 1905-1906. 

Only a few of the most essential details will 
be given, but here again as in Personality C. the 
realism of the hypnotic state was marked and 
the patient mistook me for the physician in the 
Sanitarium. 

Q. Where are you? A. In the Sanatarium. 

Q. Do you know me? A. Yes, Dr. M. (Physician 
in the Sanitarium). 

Q. How long have you been here? A. Don’t know. 

Q. Why did you come here? A. Why, doctor, I 
came here because I was tired and I haven’t been sleep¬ 
ing. But don’t let the young doctor take my history. 

Q. How long do you intend to remain here? A. 
Three weeks—then I will take my position again. 


29^ DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Q. What is your position? A. Why, doctor, I told 
you. Didn’t I show you all my testimonials (in a sur¬ 
prised tone of voice) ? 

Q. Is your airni paralyzed? A. Why, no—I have 
been sitting out on the veranda to-day. 

Therefore, as will be clearly seen from the 
data given above, the original Mrs. Y., a sufferer 
from a severe form of hysteria, when hypno¬ 
tized spontaneously developed four successive 
personalities or rather multiple hypnotic states. 
In none of the states was there any change of 
character, other than demanded as a reaction to 
her surroundings. 

These four personalities may be summarized 
as follows: 

Personality A, In England in 1887, when 
eighteen years of age, just after her marriage. 

Personality B, In the city of P. during the 
years 1889 to 1899. 

Personality C, In the Institution at B. dur¬ 
ing the years 1902-1904. 

Another phase of the same personality de¬ 
veloped in a later hypnotic state, viz.:—an epi¬ 
sode in the office of Dr. J. in L. 

Personality D. In the Sanitarium during 
the years 1905-1906, during which time the hys¬ 
terical paralysis developed. 

All these states may be called hypnotic per¬ 
sonalities, to which we have referred above. The 


THE SPLITTING OF A PERSONALITY 295 

mental organization in each personality was 
simple, there was no development of a new ego, 
and no change of character. We are dealing, 
strictly speaking, with a complex group of mem¬ 
ories. The four personalities are really the 
original Mrs. Y., yet each personality is Mrs. 
Y. at a particular period of her life. The indi¬ 
vidual hypnotic personalities had no knowledge 
of subsequent events in the life of Mrs> Y. 
Thus the A., B., C., and D. states are each 
ignorant of Mrs. Y. and her present hysterical 
paralysis. In her waking condition, however, 
the original Mrs. Y. has a knowledge of all the 
past events of her life, but does not know that 
she reverts to these events in her hypnotic 
trances and develops an incomplete hypnotic 
personality. Each of the hypnotic personalities 
had a knowledge of the patient’s entire life 
previous to the date which the personality com¬ 
prised, but not subsequent to it. Thus we are 
deahng with a peculiar amnesia or gap in the 
memory occurring in a subject in whom mental 
dissociation easily took place. 

Janet has formulated a law, that in the de¬ 
velopment of secondary personalities angesthesia, 
or loss of sensation, and amnesia, or gaps in 
memory, go together. Amnesia is invariably 
present in cases of multiple personality, particu¬ 
larly in the more complex types. But losses of 


296 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

sensation do not always take place when one 
personality changes to another and when one of 
these personalities is combined with an anaes¬ 
thesia. It certainly did not occur in Mrs. Y., 
as all the hypnotic personalities preserved the 
anaesthesia and paralysis which were present in 
the original Mrs. Y. This was probably due 
to the incomplete form of dissociation which 
took place when the patient was hypnotized. 


CHAPTER V 


HYSTERIA 

We are now prepared to take up one of the 
most interesting of functional diseases, a dis¬ 
ease which in whole or in part may be taken 
as a type of the pathological dissociations of 
consciousness. We refer to the disease hysteria. 
The study of this disease has thrown a flood of 
light upon the mechanism of dissociation. Hys¬ 
teria is one of the most complex of functional 
neuroses, and although the work of recent in¬ 
vestigators has helped to an understanding of it, 
yet many of its phenomena still offer some of 
the most baffling problems in psychopathology. 
Certain functional neuroses seem to be caused 
by mental dissociations. These fall into several 
groups, as follows: 

• 1. The neurasthenic state, which frequently 
shows phenomena which lead one to believe that 
it is a form of mental dissociation caused by 
fatigue. 

2. The more complex psychasthenic state, 
with its peculiar obsessions and fears, its epi- 

297 


298 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

sodes of unreality, and its frequent far-reaching 
effects upon the personality. 

3. The periodic changes of personality with 
losses of memory for each personality. These 
are known as double or multiple personality 
according to the number of groups which are 
formed. 

4. The systematized functional losses of mem¬ 
ory or amnesia. 

5. The condition known as hysteria, in which 
the dissociation comprises all the motor, physical, 
and psychical activities which make up the com¬ 
plex personality. 

It appears from recent investigations that the 
disease hysteria, the phenomena of multiple per¬ 
sonality, and the artificial hypnotic state have 
many of the same symptoms and much of the 
same mechanism in common. 

In the chapter on the analysis of the mental 
life a brief account of the disease hysteria was 
given. In the report of a case we saw some 
of the elements of which the disease was com¬ 
posed. We are now prepared to discuss the 
subject at length. Hysteria is of paramount 
importance, not only from the medical stand¬ 
point, but because many of the famous char¬ 
acters of history showed the disease in a well- 
defined form. Many of those who have been 
blind or paralyzed for years, or in whom tumors 


HYSTERIA 


299 


appeared and then suddenly disappeared with¬ 
out surgical aid, were cases of hysteria. 

We often hear people say that such or such 
a person is hysterical. When this term is used 
in popular language, it means unstable, ill bal¬ 
anced, erratic, easily moved to laughter or to 
tears. The word “ hysterical ” in a popular 
sense is used as loosely as the word “ nervous.” 
As a matter of fact, while hysterical persons 
may be unstable or ill balanced in manner, yet 
uncontrollable laughter or crying but seldom 
accompanies true hysteria. So widely does hys¬ 
teria depart from the popular idea of the dis¬ 
ease, that the layman frequently fails to recog¬ 
nize it. In hysteria we are dealing with a world 
in itself. It is the most protean of all nervous 
diseases, its symptoms are multitudinous and it 
can stimulate many functional and indeed some 
organic diseases. The manifold symptoms of 
hysteria have no organic basis; such symptoms 
as paralysis, sudden losses of sensation, or sud¬ 
den losses of the voice, blindness, convulsions, 
contractures, peculiar mental disturbances, be¬ 
ing, when they occur in hysteria, purely func¬ 
tional in nature. Hysteria bears no relation 
to the etymological definition of the word, for 
we have hysterical men as well as women. In 
fact, some of the most marked cases of hysteria 
have occurred in strong, athletic men. 


300 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

This brings us to the various theories of the 
disease. The older idea, that it had something 
to do with the womb, has been, of course, entirely 
discarded, its only survival being Freud’s theory 
of the sexual mechanism of the hysterical state, 
which will be discussed later. 

The modern work on hysteria may be said to 
have started with Charcot and his pupils, of 
whom Janet is the most prominent of the later 
representatives. Indeed the latter has given us 
a working basis for the mechanism of hysteria 
which has born the most fruitful and practical 
results. Previous to the work of Charcot and his 
pupils the French school had directed a certain 
amount of attention to hysteria, and their ideas 
on the subject paved the way for the more mod¬ 
ern theories. France has led the way for the 
work on this disease, probably, on account of the 
abundance of clinical material which may be 
found in the French hospitals. It would lead us 
too far to give a detailed account of all the 
French investigations on a disease which Janet 
says has a beautiful history. In 1859 Briquet 
defined hysteria as a general disease which modi¬ 
fies the whole organism. This definition, in a 
way, resembled a later one given by the German 
neurologist Mobius, who stated that hysteria 
was a condition in which ideas controlled the 
body and produced morbid changes in its func- 


HYSTERIA 


301 


tions. Now it is to the merit of Charcot and 
the earlier French school to have given us what 
in time became later designated as the classical 
picture of the disease hysteria, although, as we 
shall see later, their description of the disease 
is open to certain changes, modifications, and 
even criticisms. Charcot had no theory to offer 
for the mechanism of hysteria, other than it 
occurred in highly suggestible subjects in whom 
ideas could control functions of the entire body. 

Heredity is the great predisposing factor in 
hysteria, the disease occurring particularly in 
the offspring of hysterical and neuropathic 
parents. While the larger number of the cases 
of hysteria are seen in adult women and men, 
the disease may also occur in children, even in 
very young children. Juvenile types of hys¬ 
teria have been reported in children varying 
from three to twelve years of age. Probably 
in the very early cases the child imitates the 
symptoms of some other child, or some adult, 
who is suffering from either a functional or 
an organic disease of the nervous system. I 
have seen children who have imitated the con¬ 
vulsions of genuine epilepsy and also of an 
organic paralysis of the legs or arms. Here the 
child seems to have become the victim of a fixed 
idea or of a deeply-rooted obsession. Hysteria 
in children may be treated as Jung and Freud 


302 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

have done, through psycho-analytic methods, 
or through what are termed the methods of 
surprise and disregard. It is best, however, 
in these cases to combine any form of psy¬ 
chotherapy with purely physical methods of 
treatment. When hysteria occurs in children 
the manifestations of the disease are usually 
limited to one or to a few symptoms, such as 
transitory paralysis of a limb, hysterical pain 
limited to a joint, losses of voice, convulsive at¬ 
tacks, blindness or mutism. 

Emotions of various sorts, particularly fright 
and terror, or the suppression of painful ex¬ 
periences are among the chief direct provoking 
agents of hysteria. In adults, as well as in 
children, outbreaks of hysteria may arise from 
imitation. Then we have hysterical epidemics, 
as in the dancing mania of the Middle Ages. 
Fatigue may also bring on an hysterical con¬ 
dition, and the neurasthenic state that is pro¬ 
duced may be one of the principal mental signs 
of a disease which, on close analysis, is found to 
be hysterical in nature. So we see that it is not 
necessary for a subject to have all the classical 
symptoms in order to be a sufferer from hys¬ 
teria. A few only of either the bodily, or the 
mental symptoms, or both, may suffice for the 
diagnosis. What, then, are the so-called classi¬ 
cal symptoms of this disease as they have been 


HYSTERIA 


303 


established by Charcot and the French school of 
investigators? We will briefly pass these in 
review, although, as we have previously stated, 
they are open to certain modifications and cor¬ 
rections. 

The symptoms of hysteria may be divided 
into two principal groups, physical and mental. 
The former will be first discussed, as they are 
somewhat easier of comprehension and will pave 
the way for a better understanding of the more 
complex mental state of the disease. It is the 
mental state of the hysterical, however, which 
is responsible, in a great measure, for the physi¬ 
cal symptoms. The most frequent physical 
symptom is hysterical paralysis. This paralysis 
may comprise a single limb or an entire side of 
the body, or it may be limited to one muscle of 
the eye, or to the vocal cords. When the eye 
muscles are involved the patient sees images 
double; when the vocal cords are involved there 
is produced a hysterical loss of voice known 
as aphonia. These paralyses usually appear 
quickly and disappear quickly, either spon¬ 
taneously or as a result of treatment. In 
one of my cases, that of a hysterical boy, a 
paralysis of the leg with complete loss of sen¬ 
sation for the affected limb could be made to 
appear, and to completely disappear, by means 
of mere waking suggestion. One of the most 


304 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

frequent forms of hysterical paralysis is that 
in which the patient is unable to walk, al¬ 
though the limbs may be freely used and moved 
when the patient is lying down. This is known 
as hysterical astasia-abasia. In one of our 
cases this hysterical paralysis of the legs fol¬ 
lowed a dream in which the patient thought that 
she was falling down a steep hill. In another 
case the condition developed in a highly emo¬ 
tional and suggestible woman who happened to 
be placed in a bed next to one occupied by a 
patient with complete hysterical paralysis of 
both legs. Now these hysterical paralyses only 
outwardly resemble the real organic paralyses 
of the nervous system. In cases of hysterical 
paralysis of the limbs there are no changes in 
the reflexes or in the reaction of the paralyzed 
muscles to electricity, and no matter how long 
the paralyses may persist, no wasting of the 
paralyzed muscles follows, such as would take 
place in an organic paralysis. 

Sometimes a hmb is not actually paralyzed 
and yet there may be an inability to move the 
limb, due to a certain muscular contracture 
which takes place, usually at the joints. The 
Angers, the hands, the feet, or even an entire 
limb may be involved. As a rule these con¬ 
tractures follow the pain of a slight injury, after 
which the patient feels unable to move the limb 


HYSTERIA 


305 


and finally becomes possessed with a fixed idea 
that all active or spontaneous movements are 
impossible. These hysterical spasms may also 
involve the neck muscles, thus either twisting 
the head or bending the head either from the left 
or right, producing what is known as hysterical 
wry-neck or torticollis. Occasionally the mus¬ 
cular spasm may involve the diaphragm and 
produce disturbances of respiration or persistent 
hiccough. An hysterical tremor has also been 
described, which may resemble chorea or very 
closely simulate a tremor of some organic disease 
of the nervous system. 

Another very prominent feature is the dis¬ 
turbances of sensation. It is frequently noted 
that hysterical patients may be unable to feel 
a light touch or even a pin-prick in certain parts 
of the body. That these sensory disturbances 
are not due to lesions of any particular nerve, 
but are purely functional in origin and nature, 
is shown by the fact that they do not fallow 
the usual anatomical distribution of the nerve 
trunks, and that they can frequently be made 
to disappear by means of some form of sug¬ 
gestion. The hysterical sensory disturbances 
may involve and be sharply limited to one side 
of the body, and may even involve the mucous 
membrane of the mouth and tongue. This 
latter type forms what is known as hysterical 


306 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

hemi-ansesthesia and it is one of the most fre¬ 
quent so-called physical stigmata of the dis¬ 
ease. Sometimes the ansesthesia may cover the 
hand or leg, like a glove or a stocking. Not 
only are these sensory disturbances not caused 
by a nerve lesion, but the lack of sensation is 
only apparent and not real. This is shown by 
the fact that the subject may have a subcon¬ 
scious perception of the number of times the 
limb is touched or pricked, as in our case of 
Mrs. Y. Sometimes the most amazing contra¬ 
dictions may arise in the testing of sensations 
of hysterical anaesthesia. For instance, one of 
Janet’s patients who was anaesthetic on one side 
of the body, on being tested was requested to 
answer “ Yes ’’ when she felt the touch and 
“ No ” when she did not feel anything. The 
patient did so and in this curious contradiction 
we must not interpret the matter as one of 
simulation, but seek deeper for its psychological 
basis^ii Sometimes, also, another curious dis¬ 
turbance of sensation may take place. A touch 
on one side of the body is not felt at that par¬ 
ticular spot, but on exactly the opposite side of 
the body. Technically this is known as allo- 
cheiria. 

In some recent investigations on the psycho¬ 
galvanic reflex, it has been pointed out that 
stimulation of the skin in areas in which there 


HYSTERIA 


307 


is a loss of sensation (anassthesia) results in 
only a slight electrical reaction. In hysterical 
angesthesia, however, the electrical reaction from 
stimulation of the angesthetic area is as strong 
as though no loss of sensation existed. Here 
we seem to have another experimental proof 
that hysterical angesthesia is not real, but only 
apparent, and that the impressions are subcon¬ 
sciously perceived. 

The special senses may also be involved in 
hysteria. Disturbances in taste, smell, or hear¬ 
ing may arise; there may be complete inability 
to distinguish sound or music, or to tell the dif¬ 
ference in odors or in the taste of food. Some¬ 
times there may be hallucinations of hearing in 
the delirious state of hysteria; occasionally there 
may be a persistent hallucination of smell with 
a clearly retained consciousness, as in Freud’s 
famous case of the patient who was troubled by 
^the odor of burnt pudding. To a detailed ac¬ 
count of this case, which in a way has become 
classical, we will return later. 

The most important of the disturbances of 
the special sense in hysteria are those referable 
to sight. The field of vision may be limited 
in all directions, forming what is known as the 
concentric limitation of the visual field. This 
limitation of the visual field in hysteria applies 
equally well to all colors, whether white, red, or 


308 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


green. Now the visual field in normal individ¬ 
uals extends from about 60 to 90 degrees in all 
directions. In hysteria this may be moderately 
or markedly retracted in all directions down to 
30 or 40 degrees, or as in one case which recently 
came under observation the visual field did not 
exceed 10 degrees. Of course, in this case the 
patient was practically blind in the affected eye. 
Hysterical blindness may also occur, usually 
appearing and disappearing suddenly. In all 
these hysterical disturbances of sight the optic 
nerve is found to be absolutely normal, a fact 
which speaks strongly for the purely functional 
nature of the condition. Hysterical patients 
whose visual field is markedly narrowed will be 
observed to intelligently avoid all obstacles, 
which shows that the disorder of sight, like the 
disturbance of sensation, is not real but only 
apparent. In fact, subconscious persistence of 
vision takes place in the same way as the sub¬ 
conscious persistence of lost sensations to which 
we have already referred. This has been very 
well pointed out by Janet in the recent work on 
the “ Major Symptoms of Hysteria.” He says: 

“ Hystericals who have an exceedingly small visual 
field, run without in the least troubling themselves about 
it. This is a curious fact to which I remember having 
attracted the attention of Charcot, who had not re- 


HYSTERIA 


309 


marked it, and was very much surprised at it. I 
showed him two of our young patients playing very 
cleverly at ball in the court yard of La Salpetriere. 
Then having brought them before him, I remarked to 
him that their visual field was reduced to a point, and 
I asked him whether he would be capable of playing at 
ball, if he had before each eye a card merely pierced 
with a pin-hole. It is one of the finest examples that 
can be shown of the persistence of subconscious sensa¬ 
tions in hysteria. 

Besides, I had shortly afterwards the opportunity 
of making a still more precise experiment on the same 
point. A young boy had violent crises of terror caused 
by fire, and it was enough to show him a small flame for 
the fit to begin again. Now his visual field was re¬ 
duced to five degrees and he seemed to see absolutely 
nothing outside of it. I showed that I could provoke 
his fit by merely making him fix his eyes on the central 
point of the perimeter and then approaching a lighted 
match to the eightieth degree.” 

As a rare symptom there have also been re¬ 
ported peculiar illusions of vision in which 
objects appear either abnormally large or ab¬ 
normally small. The peculiar fact in the vari¬ 
ous disturbances of vision, particularly in the 
narrowing of the visual field, is that the patient 
is indifferent to it. He believes his vision to be 
normal, in the same manner that the anaesthetic 
subject believes his sensation to be normal. 

A group of other peculiar phenomena may 


310 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

appear in hysteria, such as sudden swelKng 
around the joints, high fever without any ap¬ 
parent cause, persistent vomiting, disgust and 
distaste for food, sometimes leading to absolute 
refusal of food, and occasionally bleeding from 
the mucous membrane of the mouth, which may 
resemble a hemorrhage from the lungs. 

Another frequent set of symptoms are the 
various convulsive attacks. These convulsive 
attacks strongly resemble genuine epilepsy; in 
fact, so strong is the resemblance that frequently 
a correct diagnosis can be made only after pro¬ 
longed observation and study. The convulsions 
may be general in nature or limited to one limb, 
but are less inco-ordinate than in epilepsy. As 
a rule the attack begins with a sense of constric¬ 
tion in the throat and the patient has no memory 
for the attack. Sometimes the memories for a 
period antedating the attack are apparently 
completely obliterated (retrograde amnesia). 
We say apparently, for by proper artificial de¬ 
vices the lost memories may be completely re¬ 
stored. We have already referred to some of 
this work in a previous chapter. In the attack 
itself there may be a complete unconsciousness, 
or the patient may alternately laugh and cry. 
Peculiar attitudes are taken, the body being 
sometimes arched in half a circle, the patient 
resting on the head and heels. Other motor 


HYSTERIA 


311 


phenomena are the attacks of stupor and of 
sleep; occasionally a condition of catalepsy may 
arise, so that the limbs may be moulded in any 
position as though they were made of wax. 
Sometimes periods of sleep wandering may take 
place, known as somnambulism. 

More important, however, than the physical 
symptoms are the mental states of hystericals. 
These mental states are legion. There may be 
malingering, unstable emotions, loss of memory, 
weakness of will, increased suggestibility, de¬ 
lirium or stupor, subconscious acts, fixed ideas, 
and finally, severe modifications and changes in 
character, leading to double or multiple per¬ 
sonalities. Hallucinations of the various senses 
may arise, and also peculiar dreamy states of 
consciousness. The mental state is far more im¬ 
portant than the physical side of hysteria, but it 
probably has the same underlying mechanism. 

We have thus very hastily and in a very frag¬ 
mentary manner reviewed the principal mental 
and physical symptoms of hysteria as they have 
been outlined by the French school. Hysteria 
may take one or any of these forms, or it may 
widely depart from the usual classical descrip¬ 
tion. What, then, is the cause of these multi¬ 
form symptoms, how are they to be explained, 
and how does the hysterical mechanism work? 
Many theories have been propounded for the 


312 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


cause of hysteria, and although these theories 
may differ in some minor points, yet their es¬ 
sential ideas remain the same. In other words 
we seem to be dealing with a peculiar men¬ 
tal state, but whether this mental state is one 
of increased suggestibility, or an effort on the 
part of the subject to get rid of painful ideas 
or of suppressed emotions, the result seems to 
be the same, namely a dissociation of conscious¬ 
ness leading to mild or severe changes in the 
personahty. We shall now review these theories 
somewhat in detail. 

The work of Janet may be taken as a type of 
the leading theories of the French school.^ 
After dismissing anaesthesia and falsehood as a 
necessary accompaniment of hysteria he states 
that the most fundamental stigma of the disease 
is increased suggestibility. He insists on the 
marked resemblance between experimental sug¬ 
gestion or hypnosis and spontaneous suggestion 
or hysteria, thus agreeing with the recent con¬ 
ception of Grasset. Suggestion is the develop¬ 
ment of an idea, while abstraction is a form of 
exaggerated absent-mindedness, and both exist 
to an astonishing degree in hysteria. The sub¬ 
conscious phenomena of hysteria are the results 
of this disposition to an exaggerated absent- 

^ Pierre Janet: “The Mental State of Hystericals ”; “The 
Major Symptoms of Hysteria.” 


HYSTERIA 


313 


mindedness; the mind is too narrow to take in a 
number of ideas at the same time and certain 
perceptions do not enter consciousness. To this 
condition Janet applies the phrase “ retraction 
of the field of consciousness.’’ In anaesthesia, it 
is sensation which escapes personal perception; 
in paralysis it is movement; in amnesia the 
storing up or conservation of impressions is en¬ 
tirely disregarded by the patient and hence re¬ 
production of these impressions is at fault. 
Ideas are very important factors in the symp¬ 
toms of hysteria. These ideas are all-powerful 
and dominating, and act upon the body in an 
abnormal manner. The retraction of the field 
of consciousness either gives too much power 
to certain ideas or certain ideas may temporarily 
drop out of the field of conscious perception. 
Hence, on the one hand there arises the exag¬ 
gerated motility of hysteria, and on the other 
hand, the peculiar amnesia, angesthesia, and 
paralyses. Hysteria, therefore, according to 
Janet’s interpretation, is a disease of personal 
synthesis, a form of mental depression, char¬ 
acterized by a narrowing of the field of personal 
consciousness and a tendency to the dissociation 
and emancipation of the systems of ideas and 
functions which constitute the personality. Its 
starting point is a depression, an exhaustion of 
the higher functions of the brain. The dissocia- 


314 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


tion seems to follow several laws; it reacts most 
powerfully on a function that was weak and dis¬ 
turbed. The most complicated functions dis¬ 
appear first and that particular function is in¬ 
hibited which was in full activity at the time the 
emotion or fatigue had its dissociating effect. 
According to Janet most cases of alternating 
personality are hysterical in nature. Hysterical 
anaesthesia is a certain species of absent-minded¬ 
ness ; the sensation itself has not disappeared but 
is merely dissociated, that is, not connected with 
the totality of consciousness. In the normal 
absent-mindedness of everyday life there is also, 
temporarily at least, a condition of ansesthesia 
and amnesia, and sometimes even increased sug¬ 
gestibility and a decrease of motor control. 
In absent-mindedness, too, we may pay little or 
no attention to a pinch or a pin-prick, we may 
assume an attitude in wliich we seem tempo¬ 
rarily devoid of all ability to move the hmbs, or 
we may perform absurd actions which can after¬ 
wards be recalled in memory only through a 
special device. Thus we see how many of the 
phenomena of the hypnotic state or even of the 
disease hysteria may be found in an abortive and 
temporary form in normal absent-mindedness. 
In the hysterical amnesias there is no real ob¬ 
livion or destruction of memorial images; it is 
not conservation that is at fault, but merely 


HYSTERIA 


315 


the impossibility of spontaneous reproduction, 
yet frequently the memory may be restored by 
artificial devices. In hysterical paralysis it is 
the idea of the motion of the limb that is lost or 
dissociated and not the motion itself. Some¬ 
times this loss comprises an entire system of 
images of movement as in astasia-abasia. In 
hysterical blindness or hemianopsia there is no 
real blindness, the visual images or stimuli being 
merely suppressed. 

Thus we see how both Charcot and Janet laid 
great stress upon a state of increased suggesti¬ 
bility, as forming one of the principal mental 
stigmata of hysteria. On this basis another 
French neurologist, Babinski, has recently 
brought forth another theory of the disease. 
He denies the invariability of all so-called hys¬ 
terical stigmata, claiming that they are all pro¬ 
duced by the suggestion, conscious or uncon¬ 
scious, of the examiner. According to Babinski, 
when great care is taken to exclude any form of 
suggestion during the medical examination, these 
stigmata do not appear. This view thus makes 
use of a state of increased suggestibility as a 
basis for the production of an entire range of 
mental and physical symptoms. Emphatically 
and almost dogmatically he affirms that the com¬ 
mon stigmata of hysteria, such as hmitation of 
the field of vision and hemi-anaesthesia, never 


316 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

occur in the patients under his control, since he 
studiously avoids any element of suggestion in 
the examination. Hysteria has two prominent 
characteristics; first, the possibility of producing 
some of the symptoms of the disease through 
suggestion, and, secondly, the effect of sugges¬ 
tion in making the symptoms of the disease dis¬ 
appear. It might be asked pertinently, does he 
also make the abnormal mental state of in¬ 
creased suggestibility disappear, a mental state 
through which he claims all the symptoms are 
reproduced? The suggestion theory of Babin- 
ski cannot certainly be accepted without con¬ 
siderable criticism or without great caution. It 
is true that no hysterical symptoms develop 
without suggestion, either on the part of the 
examiner or as the result of unconscious auto¬ 
suggestion on the part of the patient. Babinski 
says nothing as to the ultimate nature of the 
disease. According to him hysteria is not 
a pathological state, but is always the result of 
a simulation or of suggestion. What Babinski 
has done is not to explain the mechanism of hys¬ 
teria, but to lay emphasis upon one of its promi¬ 
nent mental stigmata—namely, a state of in¬ 
creased suggestibility, which, acting from within 
or from without, can produce a long line of 
morbid symptoms. Certainly many of the 
most prominent symptoms of hysteria cannot 


HYSTERIA 


317 


be explained by Babinski’s theory/ If a sub¬ 
ject is so abnormal as to be open to such a great 
degree to suggestions of paralysis or loss of 
sensation, it must logically follow such a sub¬ 
ject is in a diseased mental condition. 

Soilier ^ has given us a physiological theory 
for the disease, in contradistinction to the usual 
psychological interpretations. He claims that 
hysteria is a peculiar going to sleep of portions 
and at times of the whole brain. He says, 
“ Hysteria is a physical, functional disturbance 
of the brain, consisting in a torpor or sleep, 
local or general, of the cortical (brain) centres, 
and manifesting itself, according to the centres 
affected, by vasomotor or trophic, visceral and 
sensory, motor and psychic disturbances, and, 
according to its variations, its degree and dura¬ 
tion, by transitory crises, permanent stigmata or 
paroxysmal accidents. Confirmed hysterics are 
only somnambulists whose state of sleep is more 
or less profound, more or less extensive.’’ Of 
this physiological theory of hysteria, it can only 
be said, that somnambulistic episodes are very 
rare in the disease, and when they do occur, it is 
an effect rather than a cause. 

In America Dr. Morton Prince has given 

^ J. Babinski: “ Ma Conception de I’Hyst^rie et de I’Hypnotisme.** 
Archives GinSral de Medecine, 1906. 

*Sollier: “ Gen^se et Nature de I’Hyst^rie.” 


318 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


US the most complete study of the hyster¬ 
ical mechanism, interpreting the phenomena 
from a purely functional and psychological 
standpoint. He applies his theories to all forms 
of this protean disease, from the slight disturb¬ 
ances of sensation to the classical picture of the 
deeper dissociations, such as paralysis, hemi- 
anaesthesia, amnesia, and the changes in the per¬ 
sonality. According to Dr. Prince, one of the 
most prominent mental stigmata of hysteria is 
the so-called neurasthenic state, which may be 
one result of a mental dissociation. He finds 
the same symptom complex in the so-called 
dissociated or multiple personality, as in the 
disease hysteria, and both conditions are merely 
manifestations of a dissociated personality.^ 
He says, “ The alternation in mass of an hys¬ 
terical state with the normal condition allows it 
to be seen that the hysterical symptom com¬ 
plex is not only a disintegration of the person¬ 
ality, but, from one point of view, a phase of 
multiple personality. The changing back and 
forth of the two states, with amnesia on the 
part of one or the other, or both, brings out 
the contrast between the hysteric and the nor¬ 
mal. The hysteric stands out plainly as a dif¬ 
ferent personality, in the sense of a disintegrated 

^ In addition to other publications previously cited, see “ Hysteria 
from the Point of View of Dissociated Personality .”—Journal 
Abnormal Psychology, October, 1906. 


HYSTERIA 


319 


personality with a well-organized, though patho¬ 
logically deranged nervous system. There is a 
doubling of personality, a normal and an ab¬ 
normal one, and the abnormal hysteric is seen 
to be a phase of this double personality. Before 
the phenomenon of alteration was established, 
this doubling was obscured by the gradual tran¬ 
sition from health to disease and by the reten¬ 
tion of memory. There was no contrast. 
Nevertheless at this period the pathological con¬ 
dition was in every way identical with that 
which existed after alteration occurred. The 
conclusion to which our analysis of the case 
brings us, is that certain symptom complexes 
which commonly pass under the name of hys¬ 
teria, with or without amnesia, are from another 
point of view to be regarded as disintegrated or 
multiple personality, and if taken in connection 
with the normal condition, may be regarded as 
a phase of multiple personality. That is to 
say, the previous or later acquired normal state 
may be regarded as one personality, and the dis¬ 
integrated hysteric as another. As the hysteria, 
ordinarily developed insidiously, and equally 
gradually returns to health, retaining a continu¬ 
ous memory through the whole cycle, the split¬ 
ting of the personality and the multiple char¬ 
acteristics are disguised. One condition slides 
into the other so gradually that, in the absence 


320 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of any loss of memory, there is nothing to mark 
the division of the personality. But when, as is 
sometimes the case, a sudden restoration to 
health is effected, bringing with it an amnesia 
on the part of the hysteric or of the restored 
normal person, then the duality of personality 
becomes plainly recognizable.” This identity 
of the hysterical state with multiple personality 
was clearly brought out by Dr. Prince in two 
carefully studied cases, that of Miss Beauchamp 
and that of B. C. A. 

Miss Beauchamp was a classical picture of 
hysteria, and yet, when she first came under 
observation, B. I. was the only personality in 
existence. This B. I. had typical neurasthenic 
symptoms, such as fatigue, insomnia, and pains 
without any physical basis. These neurasthenic 
symptoms were proven to be merely one phase 
of the hysterical dissociation. When the other 
personalities developed, many of the various 
hysterical stigmata could be established, the 
weakness of the will, instability, abnormal sug¬ 
gestibility and limitation of the field of con¬ 
sciousness. When a relapse occurred after 
restoration by treatment to the normal healthy 
individual, there was found to be a loss of mem¬ 
ory of the developed, hysterical condition for 
the normal individual. 

The case B. C. A. could also be interpreted 


HYSTERIA 


321 


as one of hysteria. Like Miss Beauchamp, when 
first seen she also presented the picture of ordi¬ 
nary neurasthenia, such as fatigue and the 
usual physical symptoms. This phase was de¬ 
scribed as state A. Later another state, sud¬ 
denly developed, which was described as B. A., 
had no memory for B. but the latter not only 
possessed a full knowledge of A., but persisted 
co-consciously when A. was present. This lat-' 
ter phenomenon was well shown by the psycho¬ 
galvanic experiments. B. was, therefore, both 
an alternating and a co-conscious state. Be¬ 
sides differences in memory, both A. and B. 
had distinctly different characteristics. While 
A. was neurasthenic, B. showed a state of 
exaltation and complete freedom from neuras¬ 
thenia. It was shown after long study, that 
neither A. nor B. represented the normal, 
complete personality. The normal state was 
finally obtained in hypnosis, and on being awak¬ 
ened from hypnosis, a personality was found to 
have developed which possessed the combined 
memories of A. and B., and was free from the 
abnormal symptoms which characterized each. 
This normal personality called C. had, there¬ 
fore, split into the two abnormal personalities, 
A. and B.^ 

^See “My Life as a Dissociated Personality .”—Journal Ab¬ 
normal Psychology, Vol. III. 


322 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


We are now prepared to take up a theory of 
the mechanism of hysteria which has recently 
attracted much attention—namely, the studies 
of Dr. Sigmund Freud of Vienna. Beginning 
with certain temporary dissociations which take 
place in normal individuals, called by Freud 
the psychopathology of everyday life, he gradu¬ 
ally applied his theories to the study of the com¬ 
plex pathological state of hysteria and found 
that the same mechanism underlay both condi¬ 
tions. In normal cases, however, this mechanism 
was temporary and isolated; in the hysteric it 
was protracted and acted upon the entire mental 
physical life. In his studies of the psycho¬ 
neuroses he claimed that all hysterical symptoms 
were manifestations or expressions of a wish 
fulfilment, particularly of a sexual nature. In 
normal everyday life disagreeable or painful 
thoughts are always forgotten; we intentionally, 
or even unconsciously push them out of con¬ 
sciousness, so as to free ourselves from dis¬ 
agreeable feelings or pain. This may be called 
a mental protective mechanism. In some of 
the ordinary dreams of everyday hfe, its pur¬ 
poseless actions or its absent-minded acts, its 
forgetting of names and places, slips of the 
tongue, or mistakes in writing remain temporary 
because we are able to crowd out these dis¬ 
agreeable feelings or ideas at will. Sometimes, 


HYSTERIA 


32S 


however, a disagreeable incident remains in our 
unconscious memory, forming what Freud calls 
a complex. Then, because we have no control 
over it, this complex acts in a pathological 
manner. It cannot run its normal course and, 
therefore, becomes converted or changed into the 
condition which we designate as hysteria. The 
method of digging out this buried complex and 
bringing it to light or consciousness and, there¬ 
fore, to conscious control, is called psycho¬ 
analysis. Now this psycho-analysis may be per¬ 
formed in a number of ways as has already been 
indicated. 

An abstract of the analysis of one of Freud’s 
cases will make this clear. The patient, a gov¬ 
erness, was sent to Freud, because she was 
troubled by the persistent hallucination of the 
smell of burnt pudding. When the patient was 
placed in abstraction (here abstraction was 
the device used for psycho-analysis) and she 
was asked to recall the occasion on which she 
firi^ was troubled by the odor, she gave the 
following account, “ It was about two months 
ago, two days before my birthday. I was 
with the children in the schoolroom and was 
playing with them at cooking, when a letter 
was brought in, which had just been left by 
the postman. I knew from the postmark and 
handwriting that it was from my mother, and 


324 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


was about to open and read it when the chil¬ 
dren rushed at me and tore the letter from my 
hand, saying, ‘ No, you mustn’t read it now, it’s 
sure to be a congratulatory letter for your 
birthday, we’ll take it away from you.’ While 
they were playing about me a strong odor 
suddenly spread through the room. The chil¬ 
dren had left the pudding which they were 
cooking, and it was burnt. Ever since the smell 
has pursued me.” Further examination, how¬ 
ever, revealed the fact that the patient had occa¬ 
sionally secretly cherished the hope of taking the 
place of the children’s mother, and it was only 
with great difficulty that she was able to get rid 
of this idea. The psychical excitement, the 
birthday, and the sexual emotion had become 
symbolized, converted into the hallucination 
of smell. Here we see how, at the bottom, 
the sexual element, or rather the sexual 
repression was a controlling factor in this 
process. 

It could be shown, that the forgetting of 
events which were brought out only by analysis 
was intentional and desired. Concerning the 
peculiar site of the hallucinations in this case, 
Freud states, “ It is quite unusual to select sen¬ 
sations of smell as memory symbols of traumas, 
but it is quite obvious why these were here 
selected. The patient was afflicted with a pur- 


HYSTERIA 


325 


ulent rhinitis, hence the nose and its perceptions 
were in the foreground of her attention.” 

Painful experiences, usually having a sexual 
coloring, which may or may not be accompanied 
by a physical expression, may occur. The im¬ 
print or experience may fade out of conscious¬ 
ness, but the symbolic emotion which first at¬ 
tended it remains and continues to recur. For 
this to take place Freud postulates at the time 
of the original emotion, that the patient was in 
a state of abstraction called by him an hyp- 
noidal condition. He works out his principles 
and theories with great detail and with con¬ 
summate literary skill. These repressed emo¬ 
tions are the mischief-makers at the bottom of 
all hysteria. If they are given an opportunity 
to complete themselves, if the patient in a state 
of relaxation and passivity (abstraction) is 
asked to talk out these painful experiences, to 
bring them vividly before his mind, they “ cease 
from troubling ” and a decided therapeutic ef¬ 
fect is the result. It is the unconscious experi¬ 
ences, the experiences which we cannot recall, of 
which we are unaware, that cause the trouble. 
By certain technical devices we may become 
aware of them, showing that they were disso¬ 
ciated, preserved in the subconscious mental life. 

According to Freud, there are several distinct 
types of hysteria, which he designates as defence 


326 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

hysteria, hypnoid hysteria, conversion hysteria, 
anxiety hysteria, and retention hysteria. He 
criticises Janet’s theory that a splitting of con¬ 
sciousness is the primary feature of the hysteri¬ 
cal alteration, and yet is forced to admit that 
this splitting exists in a rudimentary form in 
every hysterical case. Freud defines the de¬ 
fence hysterias as those types of cases in which 
the splitting of consciousness was an uncon¬ 
scious arbitrary act on the part of the subject. 
The subject sought to banish a painful emotion 
or experience from his mind. In the hypnoid 
hysteria there is a dreamy state of conscious¬ 
ness, in which the abnormal ideas are isolated 
from communication with the rest of conscious¬ 
ness. In the retention hysterias, as he was able 
to demonstrate by the psycho-analysis of intelli¬ 
gent patients, the splitting of consciousness 
plays an insignificant part, perhaps no part at 
all. The hysterical symptoms in these cases 
arise as the result of an absence of reaction to a 
painful experience, usually of a sexual nature. 
In the conversion hysterias there is a replace¬ 
ment of a mental by a physical manifestation, 
for instance, either the hysterical paralysis of 
a limb or an hysterical loss of voice. The 
anxiety hysterias or the phobias are character¬ 
ized by attacks of fear in certain situations, such 
as in open or closed places. The attacks of 


HYSTERIA 


327 


fear are protective mechanisms to prevent an 
attack of anxiety. For instance, an individual 
with a fear of closed places will avoid these 
places and therefore the fear acts as a preventive 
of an anxiety attack. Many of the same mech¬ 
anisms of unconscious repression, censorship, 
and wish fulfillment as occur in dreams, are at 
work in the production of hysteria. Therefore, 
many of the symptoms of hysteria, on careful 
analysis, can be shown to be a symbolized wish 
fulfillment. 

A few quotations from Freud’s original con¬ 
tributions will make his complex theories more 
intelligible: 

“ Nevertheless, the causal connection between the 
provoking psychic trauma and the hysterical phenom¬ 
enon does not perhaps resemble the trauma which, as 
the provoking agent, would call forth the symptom 
which would become independent and continue to exist? 
We have to claim still more, namely, that the psychic 
trauma or the memory of the same acts like a foreign 
body which even long after its penetration must con¬ 
tinue to influence like a new causation factor. We 
found, at first to our greatest surprise, that the 
individual hysterical symptoms immediately disap¬ 
peared without returning if we succeeded in thoroughly 
awakening the memories of the causal process with its 
accompanying emotion and if the patient circumstan¬ 
tially discussed the process, giving free play to the 


328 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


emotions. Emotionless memories are almost utterly 
useless. Those memories which become the cause of 
hysterical phenomena have been preserved for a long 
time with wonderful freshness and with their perfect 
emotional tone. As a further striking and later realiz¬ 
able fact we have to mention that the patients do not 
perhaps have the same control of these as of their other 
memories of life. On the contrary these experiences 
are either completely lacking from the memory of the 
patients in their normal psychic state or at most exist 
greatly abridged. . . . The splitting of conscious¬ 
ness, so striking in the familiar classical cases of double 
consciousness, exists rudimentarily in every hysteria, 
and the tendency towards the appearance of abnormal 
states of consciousness which we comprehend as ‘ hyp- 
noid states,’ is the chief phenomenon of this neurosis.” 
(Psychic Mechanism of Hysterical Phenomena.) 

In a later contribution Freud claims that the 
voluntary incursions of daydreams into con¬ 
sciousness, or in other words, the fantastic 
reveries of youth, are the normal, psychical 
prototypes of hysterical symptoms: 

“ The hysterical symptoms are nothing other than un¬ 
conscious fancies brought to light by conversions. . . . 
The technic of psycho-analysis gives the means of 
finding out for the symptoms the unconscious fancies 
and then of bringing them back to the patient’s con¬ 
sciousness. (Hysterical Fancies.) Therefore, the 
hysterical’s symptoms may be a memory symbol of cer- 


HYSTERIA 


329 


tain experiences, the expression of a wish realization 
or the realization of an unconscious fancy serving as a 
wish fulfillment.” 

Considerable stress is laid upon the fact that 
many hysterical symptoms represent a portion 
of the sexual experiences of the individual.^ 

Such is a brief account of Freud’s dynamic 
theory of hysteria. For more detailed study, 
the reader is referred to the original publica¬ 
tions.^ It will be seen that the modern tendency 
is to disregard the usual classical physical symp¬ 
toms of hysteria as necessary for a diagnosis 
and to interpret certain types of mental disso¬ 
ciation as an hysterical complex. Sometimes 
the condition acts on the whole organism; at 
others, a few isolated symptoms may be the only 
manifestations of the dissociation, such as a loss 
of sensation limited to a portion of one limb. 
In either case, the underlying mechanism is very 
complex. It is certainly a step in the right 
direction to lay more stress on the mental state 
of hystericals than on the time-honored, so- 
called physical stigmata. It seems, therefore, 
that, according to Janet, any sudden emotion 
may cause hysteria while, according to Freud, 

^ The quotations from Freud are taken from a translation of 
some of his work by Dr. A. A. Brill. (“ Selected Papers on 
Hysteria and other Psycho-Neuroses,” 1909.) 

® See chapter on the “ Analysis of the Mental Lifs,” where a 
more detailed account of psycho-analysis may be found. 


330 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

only those emotions or ideas cause hysteria 
which are painful, and which the subject has 
difficulty in expelling. Evidently any emotion, 
if severe enough, can have a selective action 
in causing a mental dissociation. 

Let us follow the ramifications of two cases 
of hysteria, one with the symptoms in full 
bloom,—the other, what we may call abortive 
hysteria, or hysteria in the making, in which 
the neurasthenic complex was the predominat¬ 
ing symptom, until the searchlight of psycho¬ 
analysis revealed what lay at the bottom of the 
hysterical disturbance. 

In some of the previous chapters we have 
already seen different types of hysterical cases, 
such as sudden losses of memory associated with 
a wandering impulse, what is called a hysterical 
fugue, and later restoration of these lost mem¬ 
ories by means of certain technical devices; a 
case showing multiple. hypnotic personalities, 
and a hysterical paralysis and loss of sensation; 
another case of hysteria with a localized anaes¬ 
thesia and weakness of the arms occurring after 
the emotional shock of a funeral, and analyzed 
by means of the association tests; and finally 
the case of a young woman in whom the various 
devices of psycho-analysis were able to bring 
to light the cause of her hysterical attacks and 
finally to effect a cure. So we see that the dis- 


HYSTERIA 


331 


ease hysteria is not confined to any one type 
or to the classical description. In fact we may 
have all forms of hysteria, from the slightest 
disturbance of sensation and motion to com¬ 
plete changes in the personality. It seems best, 
therefore, to speak of the hysterias rather than 
of hysteria. 

A subject of great interest and importance 
is the evolution of hysteria, its study in the 
earliest stages, or what may be called hysteria 
in the making. At the very outset of the dis¬ 
ease, Janet found that his subjects were free 
from any anaesthesia. He established, however, 
a remarkable indifference and absent-minded¬ 
ness to all the phenomena of sensibility. This 
absent-mindedness to sensations was interpreted 
as a phenomenon which precedes anaesthesia. 

The best examples of hysteria in the making 
are found among primitive races and in the 
hysteria of children. In savages the processes 
of thought are simple, and hence their hyster¬ 
ical symptoms are simple, the same as in the 
hysteria of children, in whom the objective 
manifestations are principally mono-sympto¬ 
matic. There is a certain resemblance likewise 
between the mental life of the savage and 
the neurotic, for instance in the relationship 
of the taboo and neurotic obsession or obses¬ 
sional prohibition, a comparative feature which 


S 32 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

is best seen in the fear of touching certain 
objects (delire de toucher). Suppression is 
the result of our complex civilization. Savages, 
like children, have not learned to suppress, and 
as the dreams of children are perfectly trans¬ 
parent and show little or no symbolism or effort 
at concealment, so in the savage the hysterical 
attacks are primitive emotional reactions follow¬ 
ing almost immediately upon the emotional in¬ 
jury. In other words, there is a complete 
absence of suppression and unconscious incuba¬ 
tion. Their hysterical attacks are merely sud¬ 
den outbreaks with little or no conversion of 
unconscious mental states into physical symp¬ 
toms. These primitive emotional reactions 
occur in the disease called piblokto of the 
Eskimos or in the latah or amok of the Malays. 
In children, too, the hysterical attacks or symp¬ 
toms are simple conversions of their repressed 
wishes. 

Sometimes in the very earlier stages of hys¬ 
teria the only symptoms are those of a state of 
neurasthenic depression. The neurasthenic de¬ 
pression may be a newly developed personality, 
or it may be the result of an effort to banish a 
painful experience from consciousness. An ex¬ 
ample of this latter condition I once had the 
opportunity to observe. It related to the case 
of a young woman, a school-teacher, who some 


HYSTERIA 


333 


weeks after her return from her summer vaca¬ 
tion suddenly stopped teaching. She became 
depressed, claimed that she was not equal to 
the work, everything seemed dreamlike to her, 
there was a marked sense of fatigue, and her 
head ached and felt heavy. Sleep was poor and 
broken by dreams of her school work. She be¬ 
came seclusive, anti-social, unable to concentrate 
her mind, and claimed that her thoughts were 
scattered and wandering. Literature with which 
she was formerly well acquainted now seemed 
strange and unreal to her as if she had read it 
for the first time. None of the so-called physical 
stigmata of hysteria were present. Psycho¬ 
analysis, however, brought out the fact that dur¬ 
ing her vacation period a certain affair had taken 
place. Certain experiences in this affair finally 
led to the whole matter becoming painful and 
distasteful to her. On her return to work the 
effort to banish these experiences from con¬ 
sciousness led to the symptoms already detailed. 
If we interpret this case from Freud’s stand¬ 
point, it would seem as if the mechanism in¬ 
volved in the effort to put a painful experience 
out of mind had led to a state of mental disso¬ 
ciation, which in this case took the form of hys¬ 
teria. It is true that the condition here de¬ 
scribed did not conform with the usual descrip¬ 
tion of the disease, but we have already pointed 


334> DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


out how wide is the conception of hysteria, and 
how many forms the disease may take. 

So important is the subject that even at the 
risk of repetition we will report another case 
of hysteria. This case will show how an emo¬ 
tional disturbance finally acquired a separate 
and independent activity and how it led to 
a dissociation, manifesting itself by losses of 
memory, disturbances of sensation, and narrow¬ 
ing of the field of vision. Finally typical hys¬ 
terical attacks developed through mere associa¬ 
tion. The case showed that hysterical anaesthesia 
was not real anaesthesia, that hysterical losses of 
memory were not real losses of memory, and 
that the basis of the condition was an emo¬ 
tional experience which became dissociated from 
consciousness and took on an independent and 
automatic activity. A young woman had suf¬ 
fered for two years from the following at¬ 
tacks, which were sometimes repeated several 
times a week. The attacks began with severe 
headaches, then she would commence to scream, 
at times violently striking at those about her 
or breaking objects. There was no memory 
of these attacks, the amnesic period sometimes 
comprising several hours. On one or two oc¬ 
casions she had a typical fugue, would wander 
through the streets for several hours at a 
time, and then would suddenly come to her- 


HYSTERIA 


335 , 


self without any memory for the period of 
wandering. Examination showed complete loss 
of sensation over the entire right side of the 
body involving the tongue and mouth, a limita¬ 
tion of the vision to 35 degrees in all directions, 
loss of taste and smell in the right nostril and 
on the right side of the tongue, and a diminu¬ 
tion of hearing on the right. During one of 
the attacks of excitement she was very violent 
to several members of the household; on another 
occasion she attempted suicide by drinking car¬ 
bolic acid, on still another occasion an attack 
followed attendance at a wedding. The patient 
was easily hypnotized and had complete am¬ 
nesia for the hypnotic state. In hypnosis the 
anaesthesia disappeared spontaneously, to re¬ 
turn again when the patient was awakened. In 
her waking condition she could not explain the 
attacks nor account for their origin. In hyp¬ 
nosis, however, she stated that two years previ¬ 
ously, shortly before her sister’s wedding she 
was awakened from a sound sleep one midnight, 
by the voices of her two sisters quarrelling in 
the next room. As this was an unusual circum¬ 
stance in her household she immediately went 
into a state of great fear and trembling and 
was unable to sleep the remainder of the night. 
Three days later she had her first attack of 
screaming and violence. One of the later at- 


336 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


tacks at a wedding can easily be explained on 
the basis of associating her first attack with her 
sister's wedding. Furthermore, both in hyp¬ 
nosis and in states of experimental distraction 
I was able to completely restore the lost mem¬ 
ories, although the experiences were revived in a 
rather fragmentary manner. This fragmentary 
return of the dissociated experiences is well 
indicated in the isolated synthesis as follows, 
“ All that came to my mind, is—that I’d like 
to go away.” (The patient frequently repeated 
this latter phrase in the attacks.) “ Two weeks 
ago I had a dream, in which I thought that I 
would like to kill my father and mother.” 
(In her last attack she actually did refuse 
to allow her father and mother to enter the 
room and spoke of killing them.) “ I re¬ 
member I had a big bottle of carbolic acid and 
drank some, and a smooth-faced doctor came 
in and gave me something to drink and put 
hot water to my feet” (correct). “I know 
how I broke the plate now. The plate was 
standing on the stove and I broke it with my 
left hand” (correct).' 

In the treatment of hysteria, two things must 
be taken into consideration. First, the tendency 


^ For a more detailed account of the conservation of memories 
in hysterical amnesia see “ The Mechanism of Amnesia .”—Journal 
of Abnormal Psychology, Vol. IV, No. 1, 1909. 



HYSTERIA 


337 


to increased suggestibility and emotionalism 
should be combated; second, an attempt should 
be made to unify the split states of conscious¬ 
ness. Re-education of the emotions is of great 
importance, but whether this re-education should 
be accomplished by isolation, persuasion, the 
personality of the physician, or ignoring of 
symptoms or psycho-analysis is merely a matter 
of individual technic. The individual symp¬ 
toms such as the paralysis, anaesthesia, convul¬ 
sions, contractures, pains, tremors, require ap¬ 
propriate treatment, particularly electricity, 
massage, and special baths. The psychic treat¬ 
ment of hysteria, which may be carried out by 
any of the modern psychotherapeutic methods, 
requires training and skill. Any element of ab¬ 
normal suggestion must be carefully avoided, 
otherwise the ends of treatment might be de¬ 
feated, by unconsciously substituting a new hys¬ 
terical symptom for one which has disappeared. 
Some hysterical cases require psycho-analysis; 
in others, isolation is indicated; in still others, 
purely physical therapy is called for. There is 
no one line of treatment for the disease. The 
treatment must be modified according to the 
cause of the disease, its evolution, its particular 
symptoms, by the social condition and age of 
the patient, and finally, by the patient’s per¬ 
sonality. 


338 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


The psycho-analytic treatment of hysteria 
represents the latest advance in the efficient 
therapeutics of the disease. Through this 
method, the unconscious mental processes which 
produced the hysterical symptoms are uncov¬ 
ered, and thus the resistance which prevented the 
unconscious thoughts from entering conscious¬ 
ness, is broken down. The pent-up emotions 
thus become discharged, are diverted into useful 
channels instead of into pathological symptoms 
and thus lose their intensity and baneful in¬ 
fluence. The unconscious complexes are brought 
under the influence of the mind, whereas pre¬ 
viously they were inaccessible and led an inde¬ 
pendent automatic existence. The dissociated 
elements thus become reassociated and con¬ 
scious, and the hysterical symptoms, which were 
caused by a deflection of these dissociated ele¬ 
ments, tend to disappear. 


CHAPTER VI 


PSYCHASTHENIA 

For a number of years it had been observed 
that states of pathological fear or anxiety, ob¬ 
sessions, and fixed ideas, were associated with a 
peculiar mental state. These various symptoms 
were formerly thought to be a part of neuras¬ 
thenia, and hence arose such phrases as neuras¬ 
thenia with fixed ideas, neurasthenia with fear, 
etc. In 1903, however, Janet ^ attempted to 
show that these multiform symptoms were part 
of a distinct nervous disease, which he termed 
psychasthenia. This psychasthenic neurosis, 
while in many cases it bore some resemblance 
to neurasthenia, hysteria, and epilepsy, yet had 
many symptoms which occurred in it alone and 
enabled it to be clearly recognized. These 
symptoms were partly mental and partly phys¬ 
ical. They will be described in the course of 
this chapter and may be thus enumerated: 

1. Obsessions of various kinds, such as obses¬ 
sions of sacrilege, crime, disgrace of self and 
body, and hypochondriacal obsessions. 

‘Pierre Janet: “Les Obsessions et la Psychasth^nie,” 1903. 

339 


340 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

2. The various mental agitations, such as 
manias of interrogation, doubt, precision, pre¬ 
caution, repetition, conjuration, and arithmet¬ 
ical manias. 

3. Motor agitations or tics. 

4. Emotional agitations, which comprised the 
various phobias or fears, such as phobias of ob¬ 
jects (delire du contact), phobias of situation 
(agoraphobia or fear of open places, and claus¬ 
trophobia or fear of closed places), and the 
states of anxiety. Like hysteria, which has so 
many so-called physical and mental stigmata, 
various stigmata were likewise found in the 
psychasthenic state and served to distinguish it 
from hysteria. These stigmata are the feelings 
of incompleteness in action, in all intellectual 
problems, in the emotional sphere, and in per¬ 
sonal perception. Under the latter are grouped 
the strange feelings of unreality and of deper¬ 
sonalization, called by Janet psycholeptic crises. 
Other stigmata of psychasthenia are disorders of 
the will, of the intelligence, and of the emotions. 
Many psychasthenic states also present physical 
symptoms such as headache, digestive and cir¬ 
culatory disturbances, sleeplessness, and exhaus¬ 
tion. 

Psychasthenia has also, by the German 
school, been termed a compulsion neurosis, be¬ 
cause the mental processes of the disease are 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


341 


associated with a feeling of compulsion. The 
mechanism of the compuMon is very complex 
and it will suffice to state here that psycho¬ 
analytic investigations have shown that the com¬ 
pulsion represents a transformed self-reproach 
from childhood. This reproach is buried in the 
unconscious and its disguised form in the con¬ 
sciousness and actions of the individual, con¬ 
stitutes the compulsive act, which is, in some 
cases, merely an overcompensation for the 
unconscious reproach. Likewise according to 
psycho-analytic investigations, the states of fear 
are termed either anxiety neurosis or anxiety 
hysteria.^ 

A detailed account of a psychasthenic case 
will make the condition more comprehensible. 
This case is taken because it presents in a fairly 
typical form the headache, gastric symptoms, 
tics, phobias, depression, lack of energy, and 
feeling of unreality, which occur in so many 
psychasthenic states. The patient was a young 
man whose mother had been a neurasthenic 
and suffered from sleeplessness for years, and 
whose sister had nervous dyspepsia. (Neuro¬ 
pathic heredity.) As a boy he stammered 
badly, suffered from severe one-sided head- 

^ The anxiety neuroses will be discussed in the chapter on 
neurasthenia. The anxiety hysterias have already been described 
in the chapter on hysteria. 


342 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

ache (migraine), and on one occasion, lasting 
for nearly two years, there was twitching of 
the face and the eyelids (tics). Ever since 
reaching adult life, certain words could be 
pronounced only with great difficulty, and 
synonyms were often substituted (stammering 
as a form of mental tic). Whenever he becomes 
excited, there arises a feeling of distress in the 
stomach (unstable emotional state). For a 
number of years there has been a feeling of 
mental depression associated with digestive dis¬ 
turbances, and although the stomach contents 
have been repeatedly examined, they have been 
found normal. When he was about fourteen 
years old, he remembers having had an attack 
of unreality, which lasted about twenty min¬ 
utes. Two years before he came under obser¬ 
vation he was sitting in a theatre one evening, 
when suddenly a feeling of faintness took pos¬ 
session of him. This lasted three or four min¬ 
utes, but he did not lose consciousness. Within 
a month this feeling recurred three or four 
times, usually in church, theatre, or a public 
place, and he felt that if he did faint, it would 
be exceedingly embarrassing for him. As a 
result, he developed a fear of crowds and closed 
places (claustrophobia) and has almost entirely 
avoided any public gathering. Sometimes the 
head feels dazed, and he is depressed and fa- 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


343 


tigued a great deal of the time. Occasionally he 
is subject to peculiar nervous crises with a sense 
of unreality. A vague fear will take possession 
of him, then headache, eructations of gas from 
the stomach, then suddenly for a brief period, 
objects about him appear as if in a haze, dim, 
small, far away, “ as if I am looking through 
the wrong end of an opera glass.’’ (Psycho¬ 
epileptic crisis.) 

These psychasthenic conditions, which seem 
to be related on one hand to hysteria and neuras¬ 
thenia, and on the other to epilepsy, are of great 
clinical and psychological interest. There is but 
little doubt, however, that psychasthenia forms 
a clinical entity, for the disease picture has 
symptoms which occur in no other functional 
neurosis, at least in such fully developed and 
intense forms. This psychasthenic neurosis is a 
very complex mental state and comprises the 
entire range of obsessions, impulses, mental 
manias, tics, agitations, phobias, states of anx¬ 
iety, feelings of inadequacy, and the peculiar 
feelings of strangeness, unreality, and deperson¬ 
alization. According to Janet, these multiple 
phenomena are the result of what he called a 
lowering of the psychological tension, just as 
hysteria was to him a narrowing of the field of 
consciousness. Some of the German writers, 
in particular Freud, Interpret the condition on 


S44 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

a purely sexual basis and look upon the obses¬ 
sions, fixed ideas, and phobias as the result of 
the substitution or reproach for certain sup¬ 
pressed sexual ideas and emotions. An effort 
to keep this sexual complex or reproach in the 
background of consciousness causes various ab¬ 
normal ideas and fears to appear in its place. 

Now according to Janet, any variations or 
disturbances in what he calls the psychological 
tension, or the normal mental level, that effort 
of complex mental synthesis, can lead to a 
psychasthenic state. In many psychasthenic 
cases a state of mental dissociation follows on 
this interference with the psychological tension. 
The peculiar feelings of unreality and deper¬ 
sonalization, during a portion or the whole of 
the disease, are an evidence of this mental dis¬ 
sociation. These changes in personality in 
psychasthenia are, however, incomplete, in con¬ 
tradistinction to the hysterical dissociations, 
where they are often total in their character. 
One psychasthenic patient offered a very clear 
example of this incomplete mental dissociation. 
In one of the states she felt as if she were “ a 
bloodless nothing,” a sense of tension, every¬ 
thing seemed out of harmony, she experienced 
darting pains all over the body and had diffi¬ 
culty in breathing. “I feel as if I were going 
to pieces. My neck is brittle, I feel as if I 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


345 


were a piece of chalk and would break in pieces. 
I seem to have no personality. I am rigid and 
brittle. I am nothing and float along. If I 
shut my eyes I do not think or feel.’’ In the 
second state she had a sense of being “ solid 
and good, like a living plant,” ideas came with¬ 
out a feeling of effort, there was a sense of 
physical well-being, of cheerfulness, “ I feel I 
am something, I know what I am. I am an 
entirely different person and these other things 
seem unreal to me.” These different states of 
personality would alternate with one another 
and were of several hours’ duration. 

Psychasthenia may be either hereditary or 
acquired. In the hereditary cases, there is usu¬ 
ally a history of some mental or nervous disease, 
either in the direct family or in some of its col¬ 
lateral branches. Many psychasthenic patients 
have been shy and timid, from childhood up, 
blushing on slight occasions and subject to day¬ 
dreaming, imaginative lying, and mental rumi¬ 
nation, a tendency which is also noticeable in 
some hysterics. In the acquired cases, the dis¬ 
ease is usually brought about through an emo¬ 
tional shock. The incidents of this emotional 
shock, by a kind of an unconscious auto-sugges¬ 
tion, tend to repeat themselves automatically, 
and thus there arise the various obsessions and 
the recurrent attacks of fear. When the mem- 


346 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

ory for the original episode enters consciousness 
it usually does so automatically and suddenly, 
to the exclusion of everything else. Hence 
arises the mental torture of the obsessions and 
phobias with their various physical symptoms. 
One woman developed a fear of closed places 
because on one occasion, while in a state of 
fatigue, during a visit in a small, close room, 
there arose a slight fainting attack. In still 
another case there developed a fear of crowds, 
because some time previously at a crowded 
school celebration, the patient became slightly 
overcome by heat and felt like screaming. Now 
in conditions like these, the recurrence of the 
fear is automatic, and the mental state of fear 
that develops is accompanied by its usual phys¬ 
ical symptoms, such as trembling, palpitation of 
the heart, dryness of the mouth, a dazed condi¬ 
tion of the mind, and cold perspiration. Some¬ 
times the original incident cannot be volun¬ 
tarily recalled, because it is dissociated. Under 
these conditions, the emotional state alone enters 
consciousness periodically. These so-called fear 
neuroses are really psychasthenic states. 

The obsessions are intellectual phenomena of 
the highest order, are ideas usually of a patho¬ 
logical character. They are frequently very 
abstract and complicated ideas. They are called 
obsessions because they obsess or possess the 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


347 


mind of the subject to the exclusion of nearly 
everything else. The obsessions are character¬ 
ized by their absence of usefulness in practical 
life; in fact, they may be interpreted as patho¬ 
logical and not as normal ideas. They are usu¬ 
ally divided into five classes, which again may 
have numerous subdivisions and variations, and 
relate to all the acts of everyday life. These 
five classes are, in general, obsessions of sacri¬ 
lege, crime, disgrace of body, disgrace of self, 
and hypochondriacal ideas. In spite of their 
variation and multiplicity of symptoms, the ob¬ 
sessions have many common characteristics. 
They are usually automatic in their action and 
dominating in character, and while at times they 
may be less insistent than at others, yet during 
the course of the disease, they are usuallj^ more 
or less present in the consciousness of the sub¬ 
ject. Thought is always directed towards pecu¬ 
liar behavior, and extremes of behavior and 
actions are marked. There is a strong tendency 
to action, with a very marked absence of execu¬ 
tion, hence obsessions are usually associated 
with a certain weakness of the will. In spite of 
this weakness of the will, some patients will per¬ 
form acts having some relation to the obsession, 
or even contrary acts may be the result of the 
dominating idea, a kind of a reaction of defence. 
Sometimes these obsessions are associated with 


/ 


348 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

hallucinations, the hallucinations are always 
vague, thus differing from the same phenomena 
of the insane. The visual image seems to be 
without color, and in the auditory type the 
words are without sound; they have not the 
charaeteristics of exteriority, they laek reality, 
they are merely symbolic of the dominating 
idea. Frequently these obsessed patients are 
forced to think in an exaggerated and unnatural 
manner, their head “ works ” in spite of them, 
they feel compelled to accomplish useless move¬ 
ments and have violent, irresistible emotions. 

One of the most common of these obsessive 
states is what is known as the obsession of self- 
consciousness. Here the subject becomes ab¬ 
normally self-eonscious in everything he does, 
a distinct embarrassment and timidity arises, 
particularly in the presence of strangers, some¬ 
times the hands tremble, and blushing is quite 
frequent. This pathologieal blushing is known 
as erythrophobia and it is really only a symp¬ 
tom of a pathological self-consciousness. 

One patient beeame obsessed with the idea 
that perhaps he had done something wrong 
during a certain examination. He analyzed his 
mental state as follows—“ All this time there 
was hardly a quarter of an hour when I was 
free from the obsessing ideas. At first I 
laughed at the idea. Then I remembered that 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


349 


some one had once shown me some dates and 
asked me if they were correct. I feared that I 
had seen some dates and used them. Then I 
remembered that once I was given a foreign 
text without notes or vocabulary, in order to 
translate a passage at sight. One word puzzled 
me and I turned over some leaves to see if I 
could find it in another context which would 
indicate its meaning. I remember saying to 
myself, ‘ No, I won’t do that, some one might 
think I was cribbing.’ I stopped, although, of 
course, the thing was entirely proper. Then I 
began to think that while, of course, I could 
never have taken help with me to the examina¬ 
tion, yet I might have copied off the paper of 
some one near me. I couldn’t remember doing 
such a thing, but I couldn’t remember not doing 
it. Then I began to think, that perhaps the 
reason I couldn’t remember copying was be¬ 
cause it was so habitual that it made no impres¬ 
sion on my mind. I wrote to the school and 
discovered that the distance between the desks 
was so great that it was impossible for a man 
to copy. That eased my mind, but then came 
the idea that perhaps I had taken help into the 
class. This was strengthened by the discovery 
that I had forgotten so many incidents in my 
life.” The above shows in an admirable man¬ 
ner the peculiar manner of thinking and the ah- 


350 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

normal logic of an obsessed patient and how he 
will go to extremes of action in the attempt to 
either prove or disprove his obsessing idea. 

Obsessions are compulsory ideas, and from 
these obsessions it is but a step to other peculiar 
compulsory thoughts, known as mental manias 
or agitations. Here the mind of the subject 
swings or oscillates hopelessly between certain 
given ideas, never reaching a normal mean, but 
going from one absurd extreme to the other. 
These unfortunate subjeets can never arrive at 
a final decision or a complete convietion. Shake¬ 
speare’s Hamlet is a type of this condition of 
indecision. 

In the mania of interrogation, the question¬ 
ing relates mainly to the subject’s personal ap¬ 
pearance. One patient was constantly troubled 
by a fear of growing old, frequently looked at 
herself in a mirror, and constantly repeated to 
herself, “ Why are these men working? Why 
is this woman happy? Why is this house 
pretty? Why do people buy pretty things? 
I can’t keep from getting old, and this is on 
my mind all the time. Everything I see re¬ 
minds me of getting old. I noticed a couple of 
wrinkles under my eyes and then I wondered if 
other people had them, and then I kept looking 
and looking at myself.” 

In the mania of hesitation and deliberation 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


351 


the doubts which assail the mind of the subject 
prevent the execution of all normal acts. Some¬ 
times the patient is troubled with a mania of 
omens and then seeks the determination and 
carrying out of his actions in certain mystical 
and religious symbols. This type of mania can 
be found in the confessions of certain writers, 
like Rousseau, and in the pages of certain mys¬ 
tics, like John Runyan. 

After a time, these manias may react in ways 
called by Janet the “ manias of going to ex¬ 
treme.” Here we have a multitude of sub¬ 
divisions whose symptoms are sufficiently indi¬ 
cated by their names. These manias are pre¬ 
cision, verification, order, symmetry, contrast, 
contradiction, cleanliness, micromania, the arith¬ 
metical and symbolic manias, explanation, pre¬ 
caution, repetition, perfection, etc. The arith¬ 
metical manias are very curious and a number 
of these have as their basis superstitions which 
attach to certain numbers, for instance, three, 
seven, or thirteen. Some patients will avoid 
certain numbers; in others, a number becomes a 
fixed idea. One patient felt compelled to count, 
in spite of herself, the number of fingers with 
which she touched an object, and for nothing in 
the world would she touch an object with seven 
fingers at a time. If she happened to touch 
an object completely with three fingers and 


352 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

lightly with the fourth, this light touch would 
count as half a finger. This, if multiplied by 
two (because there are two hands), would equal 
seven, and hence the terrible number would 
again arise. 

The motor agitations or tics frequently ac¬ 
company certain psychasthenic states. These 
are peculiar muscular contractions, either shak¬ 
ing of the head or twitching of the face, in fact, 
any sort of muscular activity of which the 
human body is capable may enter into a tic. 
Tics are systematized muscular movements pro¬ 
duced regularly and automatically, thus differ¬ 
ing from the irregular muscular movements of 
chorea or St. Vitus’ dance. The movements are 
useless and inopportune, however. Conscious¬ 
ness is always clear during these movements, 
but the will feels forced into their accomplish¬ 
ment. If there should arise a feeling of resist¬ 
ance, there always accompanies this more or less 
mental anguish, until the act is accomplished. 
When the subject thinks of it, or when there is 
increased attention, there is likewise an increase 
of the tic. Distraction has a contrary effect; it 
leads to a diminution. 

Under the emotional agitations are comprised 
the various pathological fears (phobias) and 
states of anxiety which usually accompany these 
fears. The number of these fears is legion, but 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


353 


for convenience they may be divided into four 
groups, viz.:—phobias of bodily functions, pho¬ 
bias of objects (delire du contact), phobias of 
situation (agoraphobia and claustrophobia), and 
phobias of ideas. 

These fears are always abnormal in character 
and, like the obsessions, are automatic. They 
may arise gradually, but their more frequent 
onset is through some emotional shock in a cer¬ 
tain place, which later tends to recur when the 
subject is in an identical place or anticipates 
being in such a place. So we see that auto¬ 
suggestion is an important fact in the produc¬ 
tion of these pathological states of fear. The 
attacks of fear are accompanied by a mental 
state of anxiety; sometimes the mind becomes 
a little cloudy; sometimes there arises a transi¬ 
tory feeling of unreality. These mental accom¬ 
paniments of fear form true psychasthenic 
crises. Psychasthenic fears are usually intense, 
systematized, and may attach themselves to any 
object or idea. Among the more common fears, 
are the fear of being alone (monophobia), fear 
of closed places (claustrophobia), fear of open 
places (agoraphobia), fear of dirt or germs 
(mygophobia), fear of the number thirteen 
(triskaidekaphobia), fear of railroads (sidero- 
phobia), etc. Stage fright is also a condition 
of pathological fear. In addition to the mental 


354 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


state of anxiety that accompanies the attack of 
fear, there are also associated the usual physical 
accompaniments of fear, such as trembling, 
pallor, sweating, dryness of the mouth, increased 
heart action, and occasional disturbances of the 
stomach and intestines, all of which have al¬ 
ready been sufficiently described in the chapter 
on the emotions. Most of the fears can be 
traced to an emotional episode which has been 
conserved in the unconscious; in a few cases, the 
original episode has become dissociated. 

In these states of abnormal fear, when the 
original experience which caused the fear has 
become dissociated from consciousness, it is 
necessary to form a synthesis before a cure can 
take place. This is well indicated in the fol¬ 
lowing personal observation. After a period of 
fatigue, incident to some rather strenuous social 
duties, a young woman had a peculiar attack 
one evening, just as she was about to fall 
asleep. She suddenly awakened from a drowsy 
state with a sensation as if she were going in¬ 
sane, her thoughts seemed confused and jum¬ 
bled, the head whirled, the heart palpitated, and 
she felt in a panic. This attack was of about ten 
minutes’ duration. The attacks repeated them¬ 
selves nearly every night thereafter and tended 
to become longer and longer. An examination 
showed that the patient was free from any signs 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


S55 


of hysteria. She was unable to explain the 
origin of the attacks. Here, undoubtedly, we 
are dealing with a recurrent state of fear, prob¬ 
ably due to some experience in the past, but 
which, by reason of the physical exhaustion, had 
become dissociated from the personal conscious¬ 
ness. Psycho-analysis led to the following inter¬ 
esting results. When the patient was placed in 
a state of experimental abstraction, a record of 
experiences was obtained, fragmentary at first, 
but they finally could be grouped into a logical 
order, in the same manner that the lost memories 
appear in functional amnesia. These dissociated 
experiences showed briefly that following a 
period of fatigue incident to the entertainment 
of some friends, the subject shortly afterward 
went on a visit, without complete recovery from 
the fatigue. While on the train, she became 
greatly interested in a novel. In this novel 
there-was given a vivid description of fear in 
one of the principal characters. In general this 
character became panic-stricken under certain 
conditions which it is not necessary to explain 
here. That same night the patient had her first 
attack of fear, and this was indefinitely repeated 
as detailed above. While in this state of experi¬ 
mental abstraction, in which the submerged 
memories were brought to the surface of con¬ 
sciousness, when asked to think of this experi- 


356 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


ence, there was an immediate increase in the 
pulse rate. [See Fig. VIII. A.] 

These details are very instructive and em¬ 
phasize the following points. During a state 



A . B 

Fig. VIII.—Pulse curves in a psychasthenic subject, who had 
peculiar attacks of fear. 

A. —Increase of pulse rate when requested to mentally recall 
the original emotional experience. 

B. —No change in pulse rate after recovery when requested 
to think of the same emotional experience. 

At 1 in each case the test was made. 


of fatigue certain incidents of a novel impressed 
themselves with great force upon her mind. 
While reading she was probably in one of those 
states of normal abstraction which have been 
already described. In this state of abstraction 
and fatigue, certain impressive incidents became 
immediately dissociated from consciousness and 
she could not voluntarily reproduce them. 
Hence a mental state of fear arose, with its 
accompanying physical symptoms, a mental 
state which exerted its baneful influence be- 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


357 


cause it had an activity independent of the 
subject’s consciousness. 

In a condition like this, if the dissociated ex¬ 
perience were synthetized with consciousness and 
thus brought under control and censorship, the 
attacks ought to cease. This, in fact, was the 
case, and the patient recovered after this syn¬ 
thesis was accomplished. Coincident with the 
recovery, no further quickening of the pulse 
took place, when she was again asked to think of 
the original experience. [See Fig. VIII. B.] 
The physiological reaction of the pulse increase 
and the mental state of fear ceased because the 
emotions could now run a normal course. 

Sometimes, too, a recurrent attack of fear will 
take place, due to an association with some of 
the elements of the original attack. Here the 
psychasthenic state becomes what has been 
termed an association neurosis. In these condi¬ 
tions, if an analysis be made according to the 
association method, it will be found that a 
slowness of reaction will take place with test 
words related to the original experience. In 
one case of this class, for instance, it was noted 
that while the reaction time for indifferent words 
varied between two and three seconds, yet for 
words relating to the emotional experience, the 
reaction time was increased from seven to 
twenty-five seconds. Here the emotional factor 


358 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


caused not only the recurrent attacks of fear, 
but also the inhibition of thought. 

While the phobias are classed under the head 
of systematized emotional agitations, the diffuse 
emotional agitations may be termed states of 
anxiety. Yet this latter is merely the mental 
and physical anguish that accompanies the 
phobias and obsessions; they are really the 
psychical and physical correlatives of the emo¬ 
tional state of the obsessed or fearful subject. 
In the same manner a state called mental rumi¬ 
nation accompanies the manias, a sort of patho¬ 
logical “ to be or not to be,” in which the subject 
accumulates ideas, piles question upon question, 
and finally loses himself in an inextricable maze 
of symbolism. 

A brief account of two cases will show the 
nature of these psychasthenic fears. The first 
patient, on one occasion, two years previously, 
while riding horseback, suddenly came to an 
open field. Immediately he became frightened, 
thought that he was going to fall off the horse, 
felt faint, the heart beat rapidly, he perspired 
freely, and trembled all over. He felt, to use 
his own expression, “as if the end of the world 
was coming.” Since then he has been afraid of 
open places, or public squares, fields, and parks. 
If he goes into an open space, there results a 
repetition of the first attack of fear. Later he 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


S59 


also developed a fear of closed places, such as 
cars and subways. In a closed place he becomes 
uneasy, develops a marked sense of anxiety, and 
feels like fainting. Here we have a typical 
example of the fear of both open and closed 
places (agoraphobia and claustrophobia). 

In another patient, these crises of anxiety 
due to fear became very intense and led to a 
sense of partial depersonalization. The patient 
expressed his condition as follows; “ I am hor¬ 
ror-stricken. I am in a horrible daze all the 
time. There is nothing to me. I can’t think 
or do anything. When I go out in the street, 
I am in constant fear of people. I feel panic- 
stricken. I have a frightful time getting home. 
I feel all contracted and cannot move, you can 
see my heart thumping all over, and I seem to 
feel disjointed, I have no legs or arms or hands, 
my sensations are gone. My limbs seem to 
belong to some one else.” 

There are two symptoms which frequently 
occur in psychasthenia and which in many ways 
are characteristic of the disease. These symp¬ 
toms are the feeling of unreality and the sense 
of depersonalization. The latter, in particular, 
shows that in many psychasthenics we are deal¬ 
ing with a form of mental dissociation. While 
these symptoms may also occur in certain men¬ 
tal diseases, such as melancholia, yet in the 


360 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


latter condition they are mere episodes, while 
in psychasthenia they result from the nature of 
the disease process itself. The feeling of un¬ 
reality relates either to the outside world or to 
the subject’s own mental or physical personality. 
When the mental or physical personality is in¬ 
volved in the feeling of unreality, there follows 
that marked sense of depersonalization or the 
peculiar change in the identity of the subject. 
The explanation of this sense of unreality has 
given rise to many conflicting theories. Into 
these psychological explanations we cannot en¬ 
ter in detail, further than to state a few of the 
main facts of two of the opposing theories. 
Some German investigators claim that the 
symptom is due either to a disorder of the or¬ 
ganic sensations, particularly the muscle sensa¬ 
tions, or to an alteration in the feeling of recog¬ 
nition. Janet calls the phenomenon a psycho- 
leptic crisis and claims that the symptom has 
nothing to do with organic sensations, because 
a careful search for changes in sensation in his 
case revealed nothing. Still others consider 
these strange feelings of unreality as a kind of 
diluted or lengthened epileptic attack which, if 
compressed into a shorter length of time, would 
result in unconsciousness. As a rule, the sense 
of unreality comes on very suddenly and just 
as suddenly ends. Sometimes it is of only a 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


36l 


few minutes’ duration, at other times it may last 
for days and weeks, and then it is accompanied 
by intense anxiety because of the inability of 
the subject to properly grasp either the external 
world or his own personality. 

The external senses act only in an accessory 
and secondary manner in the ‘‘ feeling ” of the 
personality. All sensory perception is made 
up of two elements, the specific or sensorial 
element and the organic or myopsychic element. 
This latter is made up of sensations of muscu¬ 
lar activity, and the memory images of this 
activity are intimately united to the images of 
organic sensations of the internal or visceral 
organs. Their totality contributes to what is 
called the cenesthesia, the sense of our bodily 
existence, of our physical personality, the vague 
feeling which we have of our being, independ¬ 
ently of the evidence of our senses. Now when 
this cenesthesia is disturbed in any of its parts, 
the feeling of unreality or depersonalization 
arises, due, according to one school, to changes 
in the organic sensations, and according to the 
other to a lowering of the mental level which 
interferes with the normal sense of reality. 

Now this sense of unreality may be of sev¬ 
eral varieties. The personality may appear 
changed, so that the subject loses his identity, 
either in part or in whole; the external world 


362 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


may appear strange, dreamy, misty, phantom¬ 
like, unreal; familiar objects may appear as if 
seen for the first time; finally, the personality 
may change from time to time, a real multiple 
personality occurring in a psychasthenic; in a 
few cases, even the thoughts may appear unreal, 
not a part of the subject’s self, and finally there 
may be a sense of entire negation of self and 
of the universe. So we see that this sense of 
unreality may present varying degrees of in¬ 
tensity, from the very mildest forms to a com¬ 
plete sense of negation. A few details from 
cases will make this strange phenomenon clear. 

In the first patient, the attacks came on sud¬ 
denly and were of only a few minutes’ dura¬ 
tion. The patient would suddenly feel strange, 
a sensation would take possession of her as if 
she were ‘‘ pushed away,” as ‘‘ though my real 
self were away off there, and I didn’t belong to 
myself. Things did not seem to belong to me, 
as if I were not a part of the surroundings. 
Things did not look natural. I wondered how 
I got there, and to whom all these things be¬ 
longed.” 

Another patient described her condition as 
follows: “ I can’t form a mind picture of where 
I live. I am all alone in my mind. Things 
change every day. The looks of my house and 
the street seem to change every day. It seems 


PSYCHASTHENIA 


363 


as if I lived long ago, as if I did everything 
before. It is all past, there is no present and 
no future. I am not conscious of sleep. I just 
open my eyes. I don’t know who I am,—I’ve 
lost my identity. My mind is all gone, it seems 
as if there was nothing there. The feel of 
things is unnatural. I look at my body and 
wonder if it is mine, and I wonder if my mind 
is in my body. Everything looks large and 
magnified, and everything in the distance ap¬ 
pears close.” 

A third patient felt that “ nothing is right. I 
don’t feel like myself. I think I have a Dr. 
Jekyll and Mr. Hyde existence.” Still another 
patient expressed herself as follows: “ I feel as 
if I move in a great space of the world, I am 
not related to anything in the world. I feel 
that I am not myself, that only a part is my¬ 
self. I that was, am I no longer.” 

The treatment of these psychasthenic states 
is distinctly psychotherapeutic, either by direct 
suggestion in certain artificial states, through 
synthesis, or by means of psycho-analysis. Re¬ 
education of the emotions is of particular value 
in psychasthenia. In all conditions, the physi¬ 
cal element of treatment through baths, elec¬ 
tricity, rest, and drugs must not be neglected. 


CHAPTER VII 


NEURASTHENIA 

Hysteria, psychasthenia, and neurasthenia 
may be called the great triad of ' functional 
neuroses. The last, however, is by far the most 
common of the three. The subject of neuras¬ 
thenia is a vast one, not only because of the 
wide distribution of the disease, but also from its 
complex symptoms. The history of the disease 
bears a curious analogy to that of hysteria. 
Whereas, both diseases were formerly considered 
to have a physical basis, hysteria as being de¬ 
pendent on some uterine disturbance and neuras¬ 
thenia as a form of genuine nerve exhaustion, 
modern investigations have shown the purely 
functional character of both these diseases. 
With the exception of Freud’s recent theories 
on the part played by sexual emotions in the 
genesis of hysteria and some obsessions, the only 
survival of the old sex idea is in the etymology 
of the word, in the same way that “ nervous 
exhaustion ” persists as a popular term for the 
extremely complex psychological phenomena of 

neurasthenia. Although neurasthenia is the 

364 


NEURASTHENIA 


365 


most common of all the functional neuroses, 
particularly in modern times and in our large 
cities, yet there is no word in medicine which has 
been so loosely or so vaguely used. How many 
patients are conventionally labelled with this 
disease because of slight depression and fatigue 
symptoms, when in reality, in some of these 
cases, the neurasthenic state is an outward ex¬ 
pression of another functional disturbance. 
Sometimes a severe organic nervous disease 
may tend to resemble neurasthenia. In other 
cases, mild forms of dementia prascox are some¬ 
times mistaken for neurasthenia. The psychical 
condition of certain mild forms of depression 
resembles the mental state of neurasthenia, but 
close analysis will bring out several prominent 
features which clearly differentiate the condi¬ 
tion from the neurasthenic state. These mild 
depressions, which are usually periodic in char¬ 
acter, are termed cyclothemia. Freud tends to 
distinguish between the “ actual neuroses,’’ in 
which the causative agent is usually active at the 
time of the first appearance of the symptoms, 
as in neurasthenia, and the psycho-neuroses, in 
which the symptoms arise from unconscious, re¬ 
pressed thoughts in childhood, such as hysteria 
and psychasthenia. In this chapter we can dis¬ 
cuss only the most essential points of the disease 
from the standpoint of abnormal psychology. 


366 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

In other words, we shall attempt to show that, 
like hysteria and multiple personality, neuras¬ 
thenia is but one of the many expressions of a 
dissociation of the personality. It is thus the 
psycho-genetic viewpoint which is of value in 
elucidating neurasthenia, rather than an at¬ 
tempt to correlate the neurasthenic symptom- 
complex with a physiological substratum. The 
two principal factors producing this neuras¬ 
thenic dissociation are the emotions and fatigue. 
In a previous chapter we have already seen how 
certain depressing emotions may lead to disso¬ 
ciation of consciousness, while, on the contrary, 
the emotion of well-being and exaltation has 
an opposite synthetic effect. Before we take up 
the subject of neurasthenia as a functional, 
fatigue neurosis, we will briefly direct our at¬ 
tention to fatigue itself, in its physiological, 
psychological, and pathological aspects. 

Fatigue is one of the phenomena of over- 
stimulation. If living tissue be subjected to 
long-continued or oft-repeated stimuli of any 
kind, after a time it passes into a condition 
which we call fatigue. In fatigue there is a 
decrease of the irritability of living substance, 
and even if the intensity of the stimulus remains 
the same, the results of the stimulation grad¬ 
ually become less and less. In addition, it will 
be found that it takes a stronger and stronger 


NEURASTHENIA 


S67 


stimulus to bring about any reaction at all, 
until, finally, a point is reached where even the 
strongest stimuli are ineffective. If an isolated 
muscle of a frog be stimulated until it becomes 
incapable of further work and then the muscle 
is fiushed or washed out with normal salt solu¬ 
tion, it will again respond to stimulation. The 
Italian physiologist Mosso has shown that the 
introduction of the blood of fatigued dogs into 
the veins of fresh, healthy dogs, will give rise, 
in the latter, to definite symptoms of fatigue. 
These experiments demonstrate that in fatigue 
certain deleterious products accumulate which 
act as poisons, and that these products prevent 
any further reaction of the living tissue to 
stimulation until they are removed. In normal 
tissue these fatigue products disappear after 
rest and sleep. Here we have an explanation, 
partial at least, of the beneficial results of rest 
and sleep in normal and pathological fatigue. 
Since most neurasthenic states are only partially 
benefited through rest, and in some cases not at 
all, we must interpret neurasthenia as only 
partial fatigue neurosis. In fact, fatigue is 
only one of the factors in the production of 
neurasthenia as certain emotions can also cause 
the disease. The neurasthenic state appears to 
be but one of the many expressions of a disso¬ 
ciation of the personality. 


868 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

Certain definite mental symptoms may also 
appear in fatigue. These are restlessness, dim¬ 
inution of attention, lack of energy, emotional 
instability, leading to apparently causeless 
laughter or crying, disturbances of association 
of ideas and difficulty in recalling words (am¬ 
nesia). In addition, sensations which enter con¬ 
sciousness may be so abnormally felt as to 
become painful. This increased sensitiveness to 
certain stimuli such as light, noise, or even music, 
a kind of a fatigue hypereesthesia, is a frequent 
accompaniment of the neurasthenic state. How 
many neurasthenics exclaim, “ How noises 
grate and jar on me!” When fatigue is car¬ 
ried to a point beyond the possibility of recovery 
by rest or nutrition it then becomes pathologi¬ 
cal. Exhaustion of the nervous system may 
take place either because abnormally high de¬ 
mands are made upon the nerve tissue, or be¬ 
cause there is not sufficient compensation for 
the functioning of the tissue. Therefore, for 
the maintenance of an absolutely perfect func¬ 
tion of the nervous system the relation of func¬ 
tion to reparative and nutritive processes must 
be accurately balanced. If there is an excess of 
function, the nervous system, in the intervals 
of rest, may not be able to repair the loss sus¬ 
tained by its activity. As a result, either a 
progressive degeneration or a functional dis- 


NEURASTHENIA 


369 


integration of the entire neuron follows, leading 
to many forms of organic or functional dis¬ 
orders of the nervous system. These functional 
disintegrations may lead to definite changes in 
the personality and thus cause such conditions 
as the neurasthenic, hysterical, and psychasthenic 
states. Chemical analyses and the microscope 
have revealed nothing in neurasthenia. In spite 
of the old dictum that there can he no thought 
or nerve activity without the presence of phos¬ 
phorus, yet analyses of the brain in neurasthenia 
have shown no diminution or changes in its 
highly phosphorized constituents. Chemical in¬ 
vestigations of the excreta have likewise been 
barren of results and there has not been the 
slightest evidence, experimental or otherwise, for 
the validity of the hazy auto-intoxication theory. 

While it is true that fatigue may cause a 
neurasthenic state, it seems also true that 
neurasthenia is not a pure fatigue neurosis. 
This can be made clear, if attention be briefly 
directed to fatigue phenomena in the nervous 
system. As the result of careful experiments, 
it has been shown that the peripheral nerves, 
spinal cord, and brain are extremely resistant 
to fatigue, and that it is in the muscles that we 
must look for most fatigue phenomena. It is 
pointed out by Sherrington, that the reflex arcs 
in the spinal cord, which are composed of chains 


370 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of nerve cells, “ seem from experimental evi¬ 
dence to be relatively indefatigable.” When the 
muscle is fatigued, its contractions are not so 
rapid as in normal muscles. That is why we 
work more slowly and with a sense of effort 
when we are tired. Now the sensations from 
these fatigued muscles enter consciousness and 
instead of “ brain fag ” or “ nervous exhaus¬ 
tion,” there is merely a consciousness of this 
muscular fatigue. The fatigue of neurasthenia 
is probably of this nature, because many cases 
of neurasthenia exist in which fatigue as a caus¬ 
ative factor has been entirely absent. While at 
the beginning of the disease, there may be a 
genuine muscular fatigue, this fatigue ought 
to disappear after rest, because the muscles 
have had a chance to recuperate. This dis¬ 
appearance of fatigue phenomena in muscles, 
after rest, is in harmony with all the facts of 
experimental physiology. But in most cases of 
neurasthenia, even after a prolonged rest cure, 
the sense of fatigue continues. It may be in¬ 
definitely prolonged and even further rest will 
not serve to dissipate it. Now if the real mus¬ 
cular fatigue must have disappeared through 
rest, what, then, remains? Obviously, only the 
consciousness of the past muscular fatigue. The 
sense of fatigue has left its impression on the 
brain, in the same manner that a person feels 


NEURASTHENIA 


371 


a missing limb, long after it has been amputated. 
The limb left its impression on the brain, in 
what is vaguely termed the organic sensation. 
When the limb was amputated, this sensation 
remained as a memory, because of its long 
period of constant impression. So it is with the 
fatigue of neurasthenia. The real muscular 
fatigue has disappeared, only its memory, a 
false image of the fatigue, remains. Of course, 
by this we do not mean that the nervous system 
never becomes fatigued. This fatigue takes 
place only under special conditions, however, 
such as severe overwork without adequate repair 
by rest or nutrition. It is in this real fatigue of 
the nervous system, particularly after certain 
experiments in animals, that changes have been 
found in the nerve cells. These fatigue changes 
in the nerve cells are entirely absent in neuras¬ 
thenic subjects. We do insist, however, that in 
most cases of neurasthenia we are not dealing 
with an exhaustion of the nervous system, 
but merely with a memory of past muscular 
fatigue. 

There may be all grades of neurasthenia, from 
the slightest phenomena to the most severe 
types. It may be that the subject complains of 
only slight depression or fatigue symptoms, 
sometimes there are definite changes in the per¬ 
sonality, on other occasions the neurasthenic 


372 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

state may be the outward expression of another 
functional disorder, particularly hysteria. In 
fact, neurasthenic symptoms occur so frequently 
in hysteria that they constitute one of the most 
important so-called stigmata of the disease. 
For instance, one neurasthenic showed peculiar 
changes in the organic sensations, in which she 
was unable to appreciate the taste of bitter, or 
tell the difference between heat and cold, neither 
had she any sensations of fatigue or hunger. 
Another one felt as if her head and body were 
apart, as if the “ two hemispheres of my brain 
were separated,” and at other times she experi¬ 
enced sensations “ as if I were shrinking, shrink¬ 
ing away to nothing.” In still another case, 
there existed a complete sense of change of per¬ 
sonality, the patient stating, “ It was as though 
I had possessed a dual personality.” Miss 
Beauchamp, a case in which it was shown that 
the neurasthenic state was merely one of four 
personalities, presented many similar phenom¬ 
ena. Here, in addition to her normal self, there 
was a hypnotic personality known as B. I., and 
three other personalities known as B. II., B. 
III., and B. IV. Each of these personalities' 
had a different degree of health. One personal¬ 
ity was decidedly neurasthenic, demonstrating 
that neurasthenic symptoms are often an evi¬ 
dence of a functional disintegration. 


NEURASTHENIA 


S73 


Neurasthenia is very widely distributed in all 
countries. It occurs about as frequently in 
males as in females. Even children may have 
it, and it is fairly common at about the period 
of puberty. Heredity predisposes to the dis¬ 
ease, and fatigue, worry, emotional factors, and 
certain sexual disorders are frequent causes. 
Slight or grave emotional shocks in railroad or 
other accidents, particularly where the accident 
is unexpected, may lead to the so-called trau¬ 
matic neuroses, which are either hysterical or 
more frequently of the neurasthenic type. Men¬ 
tal overwork may cause neurasthenia, in that it 
more easily facilitates the dissociation of the 
personality, and the fatigue induced by this 
overwork tends to automatically keep up this 
dissociation. Certain types of what is called 
congenital neurasthenia, in which the subject 
from childhood up complains of physical weak¬ 
ness and mental insufficiencies, really belong to 
the psychasthenia group. The mental and 
physical make-up of such subjects is what may 
be termed a psychasthenic constitution. 

Abnormal psychology interprets neurasthenia 
as a functional disorder, and like hysteria, mul¬ 
tiple personality, and the psychasthenic states, it 
is one of the forms of dissociation of conscious¬ 
ness. This explains the frequent inefficiency of 
the purely physical treatment of the disease. 


374 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

The disease, however, frequently has purely 
physical complications, such as gastric disorders, 
intestinal fermentation and a poor blood state, 
which, of course, need appropriate treatment. 
That these complications are the cause of the 
disease is very doubtful in the light of modern 
investigations, although certain purely physical 
diseases may lead to a condition strongly re¬ 
sembling neurasthenia, but probably not identi¬ 
cal with it. 

The sense of healthy personality depends 
upon the general feeling of comfort in our or¬ 
ganic sensations, as they are conveyed to con¬ 
sciousness. A healthy personality is a unity, a 
synthesis of various organic and mental sensa¬ 
tions. Anxiety, depression, fatigue, worry, if 
they do occur in the healthy individual, are 
usually transitory episodes. Any disturbance 
of the organic sensations can carry this anxiet}^ 
depression, or fatigue to an abnormal degree, 
and there arises a sense of discord between one’s 
self and the outer world. In particular, abnor¬ 
mal fatigue or abnormal emotions tend to dis¬ 
turb the balance of organic sensations and a 
state of functional disintegration is produced 
with all its physical, intellectual, and emotional 
phenomena. The unity has fallen apart, and 
there results a state of weakened synthesis, dis¬ 
integration, dissociation, call it what you will. 


NEURASTHENIA 


375 


Fundamentally a change in the personality is 
produced, a dissociation of consciousness, and 
this dissociation may lead, according to its 
intensity, to either hysteria, multiple personal¬ 
ity, or neurasthenia. Therefore neurasthenia, 
like hysteria, is a state of abnormal, func¬ 
tional disintegration. This disintegration or 
dissociation is an abnormal psychological phe¬ 
nomenon, and like all other phenomena of its 
particular type, it tends to take on an auto¬ 
matic activity and becomes a habit. Hence the 
stubborn persistence of all neurasthenic symp¬ 
toms to treatment. The weakened synthesis in 
neurasthenia tends to the development of un¬ 
stable psychic elements and the personality be¬ 
comes disordered. The fatigue in particular, 
as was previously pointed out, is not real but 
is due to the persistence of certain abnormal or¬ 
ganic sensations in consciousness. The real 
fatigue which first caused the neurasthenic dis¬ 
sociation has vanished, and in the abnormal 
mental state thus produced there is a tendency 
to repeat automatically the previous sensations 
of fatigue. 

Neurasthenic symptoms, although mental, are 
not imaginary. The neurasthenic is a real suf¬ 
ferer. The catalogue of his ills is large and for¬ 
midable, yet how different is the living neuras¬ 
thenic from his inanimate counterpart of the 


376 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


text-books. The most striking point about the 
neurasthenic is his introspection, his continual 
morbid self-analysis. Only under the stress of 
intense emotions does the neurasthenic forget 
himself. The personality has become changed. 
Interest in things about him is lost, he feels 
broken up, depressed, anxious, cannot control 
his thoughts or feelings. The mental state of 
neurasthenia and its effect on the personality 
can perhaps best be conveyed by the following 
extracts from the letter of a highly intelligent 
patient: 

“ I found an excessive self-consciousness, extreme 
sensitiveness, that showed itself in a way I could neither 
understand nor overcome. It seemed to me the fear 
and apprehension with which I had lived and suffered 
so long had persisted. The way in which this fear 
was manifested was exceedingly trying, humiliating, and 
perplexing to me. Most unexpectedly a fear of some 
one with whom I was associated would seize me, not 
necessarily a person whom I disliked, but most often it 
would be some one for whom I felt the greatest respect, 
and even affection. This fear would become a veritable 
panic and would seem to take possession of me, en¬ 
chaining my mind, body, and soul, making me helpless. 
I could not act out my real self, and found it im¬ 
possible to express myself naturally, either by word or 
act, and internally I suffered intensely. Often the 
nervous agitation would be so great that I would be 


NEURASTHENIA 


377 


weak and even sore from its effects. As a rule I re¬ 
sisted this strange intangible influence, with all the 
energy of my being, but it was very seldom I was able 
to overcome it. As a rule it baffled me, and when I 
felt I had done all I could and failed, I would simply 
leave the place and person, feeling myself conquered 
by an unseen, unreal, evil force, outside, apparently, 
of myself. Under this malign influence I lost my sense 
of the proportion of things; this awful, diseased im¬ 
agination assumed such a mountainous size in my 
thoughts and life, at times all else was secondary to it.” 

After a recovery through educational meth¬ 
ods, the condition is described as follows: 

“ It would almost seem as though I were describing 
another person. My old self seems so far away and 
the old periods of depression and agony are like a bad 
dream from which I have awakened. The old sense of 
unreality and the feeling that I was alone, an exception 
to the rest of humanity, is a thing of the past. Now 
I found the old, morbid, dismal thoughts and habits 
which had become automatic and thoughtless, had been 
replaced by exactly the opposite thoughts and habits, 
and these are becoming more and more automatic and 
thoughtless.” 

Another patient described the neurasthenic 
state as follows: 

“ I am tom to pieces, I almost can feel every blood 
cell. I was much fatigued when I woke up this morn- 


S78 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


. ing. I am just dead tired and trembling and shaking 
all over.” 

One of the most striking facts about the neu¬ 
rasthenic state is the automatic character of the 
symptoms. The continual self-analysis and the 
diminution of lack of outside interests tend to 
keep up these symptoms. The patient becomes 
obsessed by the idea of fatigue, that he must not 
overdo. In this state of weakened synthesis, 
the most unstable psychical elements develop. 
All the principal neurasthenic symptoms, such 
as fatigue, the fleeting pains, the headache, 
sleeplessness, sense of muscular weakness, can 
be explained on a psychological basis. In 
neurasthenia, as in hysteria, there is a narrow¬ 
ing of the field of personal consciousness. 

The symptoms of neurasthenia are manifold. 
Since a minute description is beyond the scope 
of this discussion, we will mention very briefly 
the principal symptoms of neurasthenia. One 
of the most prominent complaints is a sense of 
fatigue, which is very slightly or not at all modi¬ 
fied by rest, as most neurasthenics are decidedly 
more fatigued in the morning, even if they have 
slept well during the night. The fatigue is 
probably not a real fatigue, but a false one. 
Neurasthenics, when under stress of a painful 
emotion, either lose their sense of fatigue or 


NEURASTHENIA 


379 


cease to pay any further attention to it. A 
sense of fatigue which extends over a num¬ 
ber of years, as we see it in many neuras¬ 
thenics, which is not improved by rest, and 
which fails to cause collapse or a physical 
breakdown, cannot be identical with normal, 
physiological fatigue. According to Harten- 
berg' the fatigue of neurasthenia is merely the 
consciousness of the muscular weakness of this 
disease. This diminution of muscular energy 
and its rapid exhaustion in neurasthenia may be 
measured with the ergograph. By means of 
this instrument it can be demonstrated that 
muscular fatigue sets in very quickly, although 
the amount of energy may at first be equal to 
that of normal individuals. The diminution and 
the inhibition of muscular activity in neuras¬ 
thenic states can be gradually overcome through 
continued work, a kind of process known in 
psychology as “ warming up.” This is one of 
the reasons for the therapeutic benefit derived 
from mild exercise in neurasthenia. 

Depression, dull headaches, and sleeplessness 
are quite common in neurasthenia, the insomnia 
being due, in part at least, to a fixed idea. The 
neurasthenic frequently misinterprets his phys¬ 
ical distress and pains and thus becomes de¬ 
cidedly hypochondriacal, imagining that he is 

^ P. Hartenberg: “ Psychologic des Neurastheniques,” Paris, 1908, 


380 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


suffering from all kinds of incurable diseases. 
The weakness of attention means to them a 
loss of memory; headache spells an incurable 
brain disease, etc. Most so-called “ nervous 
dyspepsias ” are merely symptoms of neuras¬ 
thenia. Recent work on the effect of various 
emotions on the gastric-intestinal tract has 
led us to believe that many of these “ nervous 
dyspepsias ” are purely mental in origin. The 
mechanism of these false cases of “ nervous 
indigestion ” has already been elaborated 
upon, in the chapter on the emotions, so 
that it is unnecessary to repeat the discussion 
here. 

Abnormal organic sensations frequently arise 
in neurasthenia, such as a feeling of depersonal¬ 
ization, numbness in the limbs, a subjective 
sense of muscular twitching, palpitation of the 
heart, a sense of emptiness in the head, or at¬ 
tacks of great anxiety, seemingly localized 
around the heart. Sometimes physical compli¬ 
cations referable to a poor circulation of blood 
are present, such as a rapid pulse, flushing of 
the face, dizziness, tremor of the tongue and 
hands. As a rule, the reflexes are increased. 

States of mental anxiety, termed an anxiety 
neurosis, frequently occur in neurasthenia and 
may be traced to abnormal manifestations of 
reactions to the sexual life. These states of 


NEURASTHENIA 


381 


anxiety strongly resemble the phobias of the 
psychasthenic neurosis; in fact, the phobia is 
often merely a protector from an outbreak of 
anxiety. These anxiety neuroses arise on a 
sexual basis and result from suppressed sexual 
excitement which becomes deflected and is mani¬ 
fested mentally as morbid anxiety and phys¬ 
ically as the bodily accompaniment of this. In 
the compulsion neuroses too, attacks of anxiety 
may result from sexual reproaches in childhood 
which have been conserved in the unconscious. 

The recent application of psycho-analytic 
methods to the treatment of stammering, has 
demonstrated that this speech disturbance is 
one of the protean forms of an anxiety neurosis 
and not merely a tic or spastic neurosis of co¬ 
ordination originating in childhood on a strong 
hereditary basis. All who have observed and 
treated cases of stammering have been impressed 
by one significant fact, namely, that in the large 
majority of instances the child did not begin to 
stammer until it had been talking freely and 
normally for several years. It is a significant 
fact too, that all stammerers show a dread of 
speaking with a feeling of inhibition only in 
certain situations, in fact, a genuine attack of 
anxiety, and these psychic accompaniments of 
stammering can frequently be overcome by some 
form of suggestive therapy. In stammering we 


S 82 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


are dealing, therefore, with a form of morbid 
anxiety due to unconscious emotional com¬ 
plexes, probably early childhood memories. 
Many cases of stammering show excessive 
timidity and embarrassment in childhood, which 
on analysis will sometimes be found to arise out 
of erotic fantasies. In fact, in a case of stam¬ 
mering in an adult, which I had occasion to 
treat, certain elements of infantile speech were 
actually preserved. In another case of stam¬ 
mering which I had occasion to submit to the 
psycho-analytic treatment, it could be demon¬ 
strated that the speech disturbance was a re¬ 
action of defence, in order to keep from con¬ 
sciousness painful memories and undesirable 
thoughts by repressing these into the uncon¬ 
scious. This manifested itself particularly upon 
certain words and letters, proving that patho¬ 
genic memory complexes from early childhood 
caused the stammering and that the speech 
neurosis was not due to a mere phonetic diffi¬ 
culty. Since stammering is due to unconscious 
influences, the proper treatment is psychologi¬ 
cal, directed to remove the deeply-rooted dread 
or anxiety from the unconscious. This is best 
accomplished through psycho-analysis, which re¬ 
moves the baneful influence of the unconscious 
complexes upon speech. 

It must not be supposed, because neuras- 


NEURASTHENIA 


383 


thenia is one form of a mental dissociation, that 
psychotherapy must be used in the treatment 
of the disease to the exclusion of everything 
else. While a certain amount of emphasis 
should be placed on psychotherapy, yet phys¬ 
ical treatment must not be neglected. This 
physical treatment helps to remedy the abnormal 
organic sensations which make the mind of the 
neurasthenic so miserable, and thus, in its way, 
it has a beneficial psychotherapeutic effect. 
This explains the efficacy of electricity, massage, 
modified rest, hydrotherapy, certain drugs, in 
the treatment of neurasthenia. There is no one 
panacea for the treatment of the neurasthenic 
state, no universal remedy which will overcome 
the fatigue, depression, or anxiety, or which will 
make the dissociated consciousness whole again. 
The treatment of the neurasthenic is a delicate 
problem, the individual must be studied as well 
as the disease, and success can be achieved only 
by a judicious combination of mental and phys¬ 
ical methods. Above all, the neurasthenic needs 
re-education, but whether this re-education 
should be simple or complex is dependent on 
many factors. 


CHAPTER VIII 


PSYCHO-EPILEPTIC ATTACKS 

Recently it has been recognized there occa¬ 
sionally occur conditions which stimulate at¬ 
tacks of real epilepsy. On close analysis, how¬ 
ever, it is found that these attacks have only a 
superficial resemblance to epilepsy, and that 
they are purely functional in nature. In all 
probability such conditions represent certain 
types of dissociations of consciousness. These 
attacks are known as psycho-epilepsy, a name 
which indicates the purely psychical and func¬ 
tional nature of the attacks and their differentia¬ 
tion from true, organic epilepsy. Whether the 
condition should be classed under hysteria, or 
as an episode in the course of a psychasthenic 
neurosis, is still an open question. The subject 
is an important one, however, because accounts 
are frequently published by the medico-religious 
cults and others, of the cure of epilepsy through 
purely psychotherapeutic methods. These so- 
called epileptic attacks are undoubtedly of a 
psycho-epileptic character, as genuine epilepsy 

is an organic disease which only simulates a 

384 


PSYCHO-EPILEPTIC ATTACKS 385 

functional disorder and which does not yield to 
any form of psychotherapy. 

These psycho-epileptic attacks seem to be of 
several varieties. They may take the form of 
genuine convulsions, so far as the outward ap¬ 
pearance is concerned, these convulsions being 
either general or more rarely limited to a special 
part of the body. In one of my cases, the right 
arm alone was involved in the psycho-epileptic 
attack and the purely functional nature of the 
disorder was proven through a searching anal¬ 
ysis of the condition and its final cure through 
psychotherapeutic methods. In other conditions 
the attack may consist of a momentary confu¬ 
sion, intense anxiety, or even a feehng of deper¬ 
sonalization. This type may or may not be asso¬ 
ciated with a sense of unreality. One patient 
described his condition “as if my personality 
was gone. I see, hear, walk, converse, my men¬ 
tality goes on, but the thing I call I, is 
changed.” There is still a third form which 
these attacks seem to assume, a form which can 
be clearly differentiated from the other two. 
Here the attacks consist of peculiar momentary 
feelings of depression or numbness, without any 
loss or diminution of consciousness, and passing 
in a wave-like manner from one portion of the 
body to the other. Here the associated mental 
state is either anxiety, depression, or fear. 


386 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


Now the important question arises—how can 
we distinguish these conditions from genuine 
epilepsy? When we come to consider the con¬ 
vulsions, we find that there is usually no history 
of epilepsy or fainting attacks in early youth. 
The attacks may be induced by emotional stress 
or mental or physical exertion. The seizures 
are of the nature of states of mental dissociation, 
which recur automatically and have an independ¬ 
ent activity. The genesis of the individual 
attacks is usually some emotional experience. 
Furthermore, the memory for the attacks is only 
apparently lost and may be recovered through 
appropriate psychological methods, either in its 
entirety or as isolated fragments. So far as 
my experience with amnesia is concerned, it is 
almost impossible to restore the amnesic periods 
in genuine, organic epilepsy. Finally, most im¬ 
portant of all, it is possible to reproduce an 
attack automatically. In one case in which the 
fit consisted of a spasm of the left arm, an at¬ 
tack was reproduced when the subject was 
placed in a state of abstraction. There is never 
an impairment of intellect or memory in these 
conditions, no matter how frequent the attacks 
may be, whereas one of the important signs of 
genuine epilepsy is a gradual deterioration of 
the intellect and memory. 

When the attacks consist merely of periodic 


PSYCHO-EPILEPTIC ATTACKS 387 

anxiety and depression they can frequently be 
reproduced at will by allowing the mind to dwell 
upon the attacks and can even be prevented by 
directing the mind along other channels. The 
feeling of depersonalization, of unreality, the 
possibility of artificial reproduction of the at¬ 
tacks and of the artificial recovery of the am¬ 
nesic period, shows that we are probably deal¬ 
ing with a process of mental dissociation, in the 
form of automatic upheavals or uprushings from 
the subconscious, entirely removed from the 
domain of the will. 

So we see that these conditions may be dif¬ 
ferentiated from genuine epilepsy, although it 
must be admitted that this differentiation is dif¬ 
ficult and only possible through close study and 
analysis. The purely psychic character of the 
attacks is shown in their origin in anxiety or 
other emotions, the complete or abortive per¬ 
sistence of the anxiety in the attacks, the cleav¬ 
age of the personality, their automatic character, 
and the possibility of their artificial reproduction 
or the artificial synthesis of the lost memory for 
the attack. The condition may be cured by 
some form of psychotherapy, either suggestion 
or the synthesis of the dissociated state. In 
the disease called psychasthenia, there frequently 
occur attacks of intense dreaminess and unreal¬ 
ity, beginning and ending suddenly, which are 


388 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


closely related to the condition of psycho¬ 
epilepsy, if indeed they are not identical with 
it. In fact, there are certain features in common 
between psycho-epilepsy and these psychasthenic 
attacks. These attacks are called psycholeptic 
crises and have been already discussed in the 
chapter devoted to psychasthenia. Likewise in 
hysteria, localized or general convulsions may 
occur, which strongly simulate a real epilepsy. 
Gowers ^ has deseribed psycho-epileptic attacks, 
the symptoms consisting principally of periodic 
attacks of intense fear or of intense depression, 
usually beginning and ending suddenly, but of 
more or less protraeted duration. After a dis¬ 
cussion of the condition, he asks the rather 
pertinent question—whether this prolonged 
mental state represents a condition of the brain 
which, if compressed into a moment, would have 
involved a loss of consciousness? The answer to 
tliis important question can only be determined 
by further analysis of cases of psycho-epilepsy. 
Brief reports of a few cases which came under 
personal observation will serve to make this 
subject clearer. 

The first case is that of a young woman, 
seventeen years of age, who for two years had 
suffered from peculiar “ staring spells,” which 
would come on and end suddenly, and were un- 

*“The Borderland of Epilepsy,” 1907. 



PSYCHO-EPILEPTIC ATTACKS 389 

associated with any definite warning or aura. 
There was no dizziness or loss of consciousness 
in the attacks. For several months before com¬ 
ing under observation she had been subject every 
morning to different attacks of the following 
description. On being awakened and after fully 
awake for a minute or two, she would suddenly 
have an attack consisting of an indistinct blub¬ 
bering, followed immediately by a spasm of the 
left arm which would take an ill-directed reach¬ 
ing attitude as if grasping for something. The 
eyes would be wide open and staring and there 
was complete loss of consciousness. The attack 
would cease abruptly when the patient was 
sharply spoken to or when she was roughly shaken. 
There was complete amnesia for the attack 
and also for the short period after being awak¬ 
ened (retrograde amnesia). For several months 
these attacks had occurred every morning with a 
clock-like precision, always on awakening and 
always in an identical manner. There was no 
foaming at the mouth or biting of the tongue. 
Once, while the patient was placed in abstraction 
by listening to a monotonous sound stimulus, an 
attack developed which in every way corre¬ 
sponded to the description. There were no 
special dreams, while the association tests yielded 
nothing of value. Recovery took place under 
psychotherapeutic methods. 


390 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

In another patient the attacks consisted of 
a wavelike, ‘‘ deathly sensation,’’ starting on 
the left side of the abdomen, thence ascending to 
the left side of the head and then descending 
down the left arm, ending usually in a numbness 
and tingling of the fingers of the left hand. 
The entire attack was short, lasting usually 
for one-half to one minute, and sometimes, but 
not always, followed by a feeling of drowsiness. 
In the attacks there was no feeling of unreality 
nor of depersonalization, consciousness was un¬ 
affected, the left arm and leg could be moved; 
in fact, an attack would occasionally come on 
while she was sewing, but without any inter¬ 
ruption of the act. Most of the attacks oc¬ 
curred during the day, although occasionally an 
attack would take place at night and awaken 
her. There was never any loss of memory for 
the attacks and no feeling of anxiety or depres¬ 
sion preceding them. 

The effect of an emotional experience in caus¬ 
ing psycho-epileptic attacks is well shown in 
the following case. A year previous to coming 
under observation, the patient witnessed a Jew¬ 
ish massacre in one of the Russian cities. She 
hid in a cellar for eight days in a state of great 
fear, and once, when the cellar door was 
slammed on an approaching mob, she immedi¬ 
ately had a convulsive attack. Ever since, par- 


PSYCHO-EPILEPTIC ATTACKS 391 

ticularly when the eyes were closed, she would 
see horrible scenes of the massacre before her 
and a convulsion would follow. Once she 
dreamed of the massacre, at another time that 
her husband had been killed by the mob, and 
on both occasions she awoke in a convulsion. 
Again we have here the production of a psycho¬ 
epileptic attack through association of ideas. 


CHAPTER IX 


COLORED HEARING 

Colored hearing may be defined as a condi¬ 
tion in which certain sounds (such as vowels 
or musical tones) produce a simultaneous sen¬ 
sation of a certain definite color. In other 
words, there is a deflection of sensation from 
one sensory organ to a different sensory centre 
in the brain, due either to an abnormal irradia¬ 
tion or spreading of the sensory impulse or to 
a strong emotional association dating from early 
childhood. The entire group of phenomena is 
termed a synsesthesia. There may be different 
types of synaesthesia corresponding to the dif¬ 
ferent sensory end-organs stimulated, such as 
colored hearing, colored taste, or colored pain. 
The condition is a rare one, and therefore the 
number of carefully studied cases has been 
limited. 

In one of Marinesco’s cases ^ the subject was 
a woman, thirty-five years of age, with some 
neuropathic heredity, in whom the synsesthesia 

^ G. Marinesco: “Contribution k I’Etude des Synesth^sies, 
Particulierement de 1’Audition Color6e .”—Journal de Psychologie 
Normal et Pathologique. —Sept.-Oct., 1912. 

392 


COLORED HEARING 


393 


first made its appearance at about the age of 
six. At this period her own name “ Marie ” 
was gray to her, while that of her sister, 
‘‘ Jeanne,” always produced a sensation of blue. 
She would often compare the pretty color of her 
sister’s name with the “ ugly ” color sensation 
caused by her own name. As with most sub¬ 
jects afflicted with colored hearing, up to the 
age of fourteen or fifteen she did not have the 
slightest doubt but that everyone experienced 
a sensation of color on hearing a spoken word. 
At this period she heard of colored hearing and 
began to realize for the first time that the phe¬ 
nomenon was not a common one. 

In this case the colors associated with words 
and sounds were clear and in some instances 
quite intense, sometimes opaque and sometimes 
semi-transparent. Certain words were described 
“ as transparent as water,” for example the 
word “ Ana ” was a transparent bluish-green 
‘‘ like an opal.” The color sensations were ex¬ 
teriorized, usually in the form of either a regu¬ 
lar or irregular geometrical figure or resembling 
cloud-like masses of color. Certain vowels and 
words produced merely colored masses. Ab¬ 
stract terms were colored more intensely than 
concrete expressions. It is interesting to note 
that certain colors were more prominent in cer¬ 
tain languages, for instance, rose in Roumanian, 


394 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

yellow in English, black in German, and yellow¬ 
ish-white in French. The noise of the wind 
was “ gray,” the music of Wagner “ gray and 
yellow,” while the music of Chopin was desig¬ 
nated as “ luminous.” Poetry also produced 
certain colors which varied according to the dif¬ 
ferent poets; for instance, the verses of Baude¬ 
laire were described as ‘‘ less luminous ” than 
those of Lamartine. 

Many of the colors of words were due to pre¬ 
dominance of the color of a certain letter or a 
mixture of the individual letters constituting the 
word. Colored thinking was likewise present. 
The synsesthesia also comprised the sense of 
smell, in that music gave the impression of per¬ 
fume, for instance funeral marches produced a 
smell of chrysanthemums or tube-roses. It 
appears that there exists a mathematical or 
physiological relationship or association between 
the different sounds and their corresponding 
colors. In many instances the syngesthesia con¬ 
sisted of a mixture of two or more colors, rather 
than an elementary sensation corresponding to 
the primary colors of the spectrum. The color 
of the word may be due to a mixture of the 
individual colors of the several vowels and con¬ 
sonants which constitute the word. In some 
instances, on the contrary, a word will have the 
single color of the predominating hue of one 


COLORED HEARING 


395 


of its vowels; for example, the word “ Ion ” in 
one case was designated as “ yellow ” because the 
elementary vowel o’’ produced a sensation of 
“ yellow.” 

There are two types of colored hearing; the 
first or most frequent in which a sensation of 
color is merely perceived, and the second, by 
far the less frequent, in which the colored 
images are intensely exteriorized in regular or 
irregular geometrical forms, a kind of hallu¬ 
cinatory colored hearing. Long words seem 
to produce larger colored images than short 
words. 

According to Flournoy’s classification, there 
are three divisions of visual synjesthesia (colored 
hearing), viz.:— 

1. Photisms (luminous or colored). 

2. Figures (symbols or diagrams). 

3. Personifications (things or persons). 

Concerning the intensity of the images, Flour¬ 
noy distinguishes the following various degrees: 
simple ideas of color or of figures (first degree) ; 
clearer images, more “ felt ” (second degree) ; 
clear images, localized inside or outside of the 
head (inferior stage of the second degree) ; per¬ 
ceptions or actual hallucinations objectively 
localized (superior stage of the second-class, 
the chromatiseurs). 

A matter of importance is concerned with the 


396 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

question,—whether colored hearing is a nor¬ 
mal physiological phenomenon arising from 
the peculiar psychological make-up of the 
afflicted individual, or a pathological condition? 
Only a few cases have been recorded in which 
the subjects of colored hearing were markedly 
free from nervous or mental symptoms during 
the greater part of their lives, and developed 
a mental disease before death. It seems, there¬ 
fore, that the syneesthesias are neither pathologi¬ 
cal phenomena nor manifestations of a so- 
called degeneration. The condition is probably 
a psychological phenomenon, whose mechanism 
at present is not clearly understood, as shown by 
the various theories which have been put forth 
to explain - the condition. Histological and 
physiological data have shown that the color 
sensations of the synsesthesias do not take place 
in the nerve elements of the retina, but rather 
in the visual centers of the brain. Four prin¬ 
cipal hypotheses have been put forth to explain 
the condition, as follows:— 

(1) Incomplete anatomical differentiation of 
the sense of vision and audition or rather of 
their cortical centers. (Embryological hy¬ 
pothesis. ) 

(2) There may exist special anastomoses be¬ 
tween the cortical centers of sight and hearing, 
in which, after auditory perception, the visual 


COLORED HEARING 


397 


center thereby becomes simultaneously stimu¬ 
lated. 

(3) The theory of nerve irradiation, in which 
the stimulation of one center passes over the 
others, varying with the individual and with 
the intensity of the sensation provoked. (Fech- 
ner.) 

(4) The psychological theory, based upon 
the emotional value of certain associations 
called forth by the word or sound heard or 
thought. (Flournoy.) Recent psycho-analytic 
investigations have also traced the genesis of 
colored hearing to certain unconscious sexual 
complexes arising in childhood. (H. V. Hug- 
Hellmuth and O. Pfister.) 

In a case which came under personal obser¬ 
vation ^ the various synassthesias encountered 
(colored hearing and thinking, taste synsesthesia) 
while limited in their scope yet were quite in¬ 
tense. The subject was an intelligent woman 
forty-one years of age, of a decided visual type. 
The synsesthesia could be traced back to the 
earliest years of childhood. Physically the sub¬ 
ject was in perfect condition. There was no 
psychopathic or neuropathic heredity and no 
similar synsesthetic disorder existing in any 
member of the family. She does not remember 

Msador H. Coriat: “A Case of Synesthesia ”—Journal Ab* 
normal Psychology. —Vol. VIII., No. 1, 1913. 


398 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


the time when she did not have the colored 
hearing and thinking. 

In this subject the synsesthesia was rather 
rudimentary and limited in its scope, in that 
only one color, blue in its various shades, was 
distinctly suggested by sounds. The shade of 
the color varied according to the sounds or 
thoughts. She remembered that once, when very 
young, she was given a doll dressed in blue. 
She immediately named her “ Lucy Blue,’’ while 
her sister’s doll, which was dressed in red, she 
gave the name “ Lucy Red.” Her sister could 
not seem to comprehend this linking of a color 
with a name. Pieces of colored glass delighted 
her, while a kaleidoscope always produced a 
feeling of great satisfaction. Red sunsets 
were depressing; to use the subject’s expres¬ 
sion, “ they were so beautiful that they 
hurt.” 

Certain sounds were blue and the principal 
words associated with the colored hearing were 
as follows:— 

“ Nellie ”—pale blue, an unlimited sky blue 
(spatial sense). 

“ Lucy ”—a clear sapphire. 

“ Bertha ”—a deep Prussian blue. 

Sometimes “ Nellie ” is described as “ pale, 
soft blue, but very clear.” 

Further analysis demonstrated, that the pre- 


COLORED HEARING 


S99 


dominating color of these three words was pro¬ 
duced by the color of a combined vowel and 
consonant within the word. For instance, in 
“Lucy,’’ the sound “loo” caused the color; 
in “ Nellie,” “ el ” produced the predominating 
color effect, while in “ Bertha ” the letters “ er ” 
colored the word. “ L ” alone without the vowel, 
or “ R ” alone, did not produce a blue sensation. 
It seemed, therefore, that the vowel sounds 
were the instigators of the synsesthesia, although 
why the letter “ E ” produced a pale blue color 
in one case and a Prussian blue in the other, 
could not be determined. Strangely enough 
the French words “ Berthe,” “ allemand,” and 
“ berceau,” although containing the same vowel 
combination, produced no color sensation, al¬ 
though “Berthe” appeared “higher” (to use 
the subject’s description) than “ Bertha.” Un¬ 
like other reported cases, therefore, particularly 
the one studied by Marinesco, the synsesthesia 
was limited to the phonetic combinations of one 
language, in this case, English. 

Conversely, showing the subject a blue or red 
disc, such as those used for taking the field of 
vision, produced no association with a word 
or sound. Tests with a tuning fork and watch 
demonstrated hearing to be normal. A (long) 
is not colored, but sounds “ cool.” The long 
vowels suggested position on a chromatic scale. 


400 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


rather than color, but these positions were not 
very clear to her. For instance: 
a = do 
e = re 

1 = do (second octave) 

The vowel sounds also produced other sensa¬ 
tion, as follows: 
a = cool sound 
a = no sound 
e = high cool sound 
e = no sound 
I = very high sound 
1 = no sound 

Long and short u, produced no sensation. 
Numbers never produced colors in her, but 
she always associated the cardinal numbers with 
a sort of visualized geometrical line arrange¬ 
ment, i.e., ascending up to twenty, dropping to 
ten, and then gradually ascending again. The 
days of the week and the names of the months 
produced no colors. “ Sunday,” however, ap¬ 
peared “ taller ” than other days. All the other 
days of the week were of uniform height except 
“ Saturday,” which is “ half as tall ” as “ Sun¬ 
day.” The seasons of the year were always 
peculiarly symbolized by a spiral spring, oval 
in shape, the ends indicating spring and autumn, 
the sides the summer and winter. Music pro¬ 
duced an intoxicating effect on her, but did not 


COLORED HEARING 


401 


stimulate colors. Separate notes of the scale 
and the sounds of various musical instruments 
failed to produce colors. 

Tests with the normal spectrum gave inter¬ 
esting results in emotional states produced by 
colors: 


Color 

Emotional States 

Purple, 

Repulsive and depressive. 

Blue, 

Not satisfied. 

Green, 

Not satisfied. 

Yellow, 

Flash of light. 

Red, 

Nothing. 


_ _ 4 

The word “ Bertha ” was localized in the blue- 
purple end of the spectrum. No color was 
strong enough for “ Lucy ” or light enough for 
“ Nellie.’’ 

Both hearing the words and vowels and the 
thinking of them produced the same sensation of 
color; therefore, colored thinking was present in 
addition to colored hearing. An interesting 
gustatory synsesthesia (colored taste) was also 
present, but not to the extent of a genuine sen¬ 
sation. A quotation from Buskin has always 
appealed to her:—“We should love beautiful 
colors as a child loves good things to eat.” 
Beautiful colors have always “ tasted good ” to 
her, while color discords were nauseating and 


402 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

produced the effect of a blow. She expressed 
the condition as follows: “ If I like a color, it 
leaves a delightful taste in my mouth, like the 
sensation when one thinks of beautiful food,” or 
“ when I put my mind intently on the colors I 
taste them. I can taste blue.” There was no 
olfactory synsesthesia. Direct tests of smell and 
taste proved the olfactory and gustatory sensa¬ 
tions to be normal, but these tests did not stimu¬ 
late any photisms. This taste syneesthesia was 
less intense than the colored hearing or thinking. 

An analysis of the synsesthesia itself, par¬ 
ticularly the colored hearing, gave some inter¬ 
esting results. The synsesthesia had not varied 
since it was first noticed during the earliest 
years of childhood. It was purely a waking 
process and not due to unconscious associations 
of sounds with colors dating from the earliest 
years of life. This was shown by two facts: 
first, that in the subject’s dreams sounds have 
never been associated with colors, and second, 
because an analysis conducted in the abstraction 
through means of free association procedures 
gave negative results. That the phenomenon 
was a cortical one, possibly physiological, is 
shown by the facts that neither positive nor 
negative after-images could be produced with 
colors of the synsesthesia, and secondly, the col¬ 
ors were always seen in the left half of each 


COLORED HEARING 


403 


visual field, but not exteriorized. The color was 
always definite, distinct, and invariable, and the 
same sound or word was always associated 
with the same color. The color and sound 
occurred simultaneously and instantly, the sound 
seemed to “ melt ’’ (to use the subject’s expres¬ 
sion) into the color. A reversion of the process, 
that is, by thinking of the specific color, never 
produced the word or sound associated with 
that particular color. The vowels in the words 
designated, and not the consonants, were the 
instigators of the photism. Closing of the eyes 
did not increase the intensity of the images 
produced. The color was very luminous, would 
persist for some time after she had ceased 
hearing the word or thinking it, and was 
not of definite shape or size, but rather like 
a “ puddle,” shading off a little at the 
edges. 

To summarize briefly, we seem to be dealing 
with a limited but intense synsesthesia probably 
congenital in origin and remaining unchanged 
since childhood. There was no heredity or 
familial tendency. This is of interest, as in 
many recorded synsesthesias the hereditary tend¬ 
ency has been marked, for instance, in a case 
of Marinesco’s and in one of familial colored 
hearing reported by Laiquel-Lavastine. Both 
colored hearing and thinking were present, in 


404 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

which variants of blue predominated. There 
was also a rudimentary gustatory synaes- 
thesia. 

What are the cause and origin of this interest¬ 
ing phenomenon, this linking of sound with 
color, apparently contradictory to the law of the 
specific energy of the senses? Under normal 
conditions, any form of stimulation of the retina 
or optic nerve would always produce a sensa¬ 
tion of light or color, or the stimulation of a 
“ cold point ” in the skin by a needle or a hot 
wire always causes a sensation of cold. The 
quality of the reaction is a constant one, in spite 
of the variations of stimulus used. Whether 
this specific invariable character of a sensation 
resulting from different stimuli is of peripheral 
or central origin, whether localized in nervous 
end structures or central projection fields of 
the brain cortex is a point which has not been 
entirely cleared up. It is probable, however, 
that the specificity resides as much in the end 
organs as in the cortex itself. A synsesthesia 
seems to be an irradiation of the specific re¬ 
actions, a phenomenon which is well known 
in experimental physiology. 

In any case the synaesthesia appears to be a 
cortical phenomenon, partly because of the im¬ 
possibility of producing negative or positive 
after-images, and partly because the synsesthesia 


COLORED HEARING 


405 


was irreversible. This irreversibility of the phe¬ 
nomenon would also seem to prove that it was 
not an emotional state, but rather a physiologi¬ 
cal condition, due possibly to a physiological 
irradiation of impulses. The fact, too, that in 
my case there were no unconscious linkings of 
colors with sound, and also that the photisms 
were instantaneous, and had not varied since 
they were first experienced in early childhood, 
would argue against the emotional explanation 
of the condition. This invariability of the color 
sensations in the synsesthesia for years has also 
been noted by Dressier in a case which was 
observed over a long period of time. 

It seems, therefore, that we are probably 
dealing with an incomplete, almost congenital, 
differentiation of the sense of hearing or rather 
of the cortical projection fields corresponding 
to the peripheral auditory and visual neurons. 
On account of this incomplete differentiation, 
a stimulus (a word or thought) irradiates or is 
derailed to a cortical center which does not cor¬ 
respond physiologically to the peripheral neu¬ 
ron stimulated. That such an irradiation of 
nervous impulses does occur, has been demon¬ 
strated experimentally by Sherrington and can 
be explained on the basis of different conduc¬ 
tion resistances offered by different fibers, 
probably an over-facility of conduction at dif- 


406 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

ferent synapses/ Thus it seems that the theory 
of nerve irradiation, arising from a congenital 
defect of the nervous system, in which the stim¬ 
ulation of one center passes over into another, 
varying with the individual and with the in¬ 
tensity of the provoked sensation, appears at 
present the most satisfactory explanation of the 
various synsesthesias. 

Another case of synaesthesia which I had the 
opportunity to study was a rare type of the 
condition, and occurred in an intelligent woman 
of forty years of age/ For years she had suf¬ 
fered with an hysterical hemicrania combined 
with neurasthenic symptoms and in addition 
there had been attacks of somnambulism and, 
on one occasion, a transitory paralysis of the 
legs. A right hemihypoesthesia could be dem¬ 
onstrated, while the field of vision was normal 
for form and color. 

The type of synassthesia from which this sub¬ 
ject suffered may be called “ colored pain.” As 
far back as she can remember, pain had pro¬ 
duced in her a sensation of color. When a 
young girl, attacks of severe abdominal pain 
from which she suffered were referred to as 
“ long blue-black.” The colors produced by 

* A synapse may be defined as the membrane of physiological 
connection between nerve cells. 

“ Isador H. Coriat: “An Unusual Type of Synesthesia.”— 
Journal Abnormal Psychology, Vol. VIII, No. 2, 1913, 


COLORED HEARING 


407 


pain were distinct and clear and various kinds 
of pain always produced the same invariable 
color. The color sensations were distinctly vis¬ 
ualized as a mass of color, of no particular 
shape. If the pain, however, involved a jagged, 
longitudinal or round area, the color stimulated 
by this particular type of pain had a corre¬ 
sponding geometrical figure. Colors were pro¬ 
duced only when the pain was severe and per¬ 
sistent. Slight pain usually failed to produce 
colors. When, however, the pain was at first 
slight and gradually became more intense, this 
increase in intensity gradually produced a sen¬ 
sation of color which increased in vividness 
parallel with the increase in the intensity of the 
pain. This parallelism between color sensa¬ 
tions and intense pain was probably a kind of 
summation of stimuli from the peripheral pain 
points. 

Certain emotional associations were likewise 
present in these color phenomena, since the 
pains which produced color sensations were 
usually those which frightened her and were 
associated with fear. Conversely, certain colors 
like yellow and green produced a depressing 
effect in the subject, while other colors like red 
and blue were referred to as soothing. In the 
synsesthesia, the duration of the color sensation 
was the same as that of the pain which pro- 


408 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


duced it, varying in its intensity and disappear¬ 
ing simultaneously with the disappearance of 
the pain. 

Each type of pain produced its individual and 
invariable color, for instance: Hollow pain, blue 
color; sore pain, red color; deep headache, vivid 
scarlet; superficial headache, white color; shoot¬ 
ing neuralgic pain, white color. 

The hemicrania attacks always produced at 
first a feeling of “ blueness ” localized on the 
same side as the headache, and finally, as the in¬ 
tensity of the headache increased, a distinct blue 
color was produced. 

Bearing in mind the physiological theory 
which I had formulated to explain these synaes- 
thesic phenomena, namely, an irradiation of 
peripheral nervous impulses, some experiments 
were carried out by means of Von Frey’s hair 
sesthesiometer.^ Careful testing with this in¬ 
strument could demonstrate a hemihypoesthesia, 
always corresponding to the side of the body 
on which the last attack of headache occurred. 
In the testing of both sides of the body with 
the assthesiometer and attempting to stimulate 
the pain points, rather than the pressure points, 
there could be demonstrated an unusually pro¬ 
longed persistence of the pain sensation after 

* A delicate instrument to test sensation, by means of vary¬ 
ing lengths of a hair. 


COLORED HEARING 


409 


the cessation of the stimulus. The duration of 
this persistence varied with the length of the 
testing hair in millimeters and was the same 
for both sides of the body. During this ab¬ 
normal persistence of the sensation, there was a 
subjective feeling of fluctuation of the stimulus, 
that is, a periodic increase and decrease in the 
intensity of the pain perception which suddenly 
ceased, resembling somewhat the fluctuating 
fatigue of the field of vision in hysteria and 
neurasthenia. The condition was somewhat 
analogous to the prolonged persistence of a 
visual after-image. 

The exact figures were as follows:— 


Hair length of 
assthesiometer 

40 mm. 

30 mm. 

20 mm. 

10 mm. 


Persistence of 
sensation 
17.2 secs. 

43.8 secs. 
66.6 secs. 

84.8 secs. 


The hair length could be easily measured on 
the scale of the instrument, while the time was 
accurately taken with a stop-watch. 

Comparative tests in a normal individual, 
with the same varying hair lengths (40 mm. to 
10 mm.), showed a persistence of sensation 
varying from 2.5 secs, to 3.8 secs, on the palms 


410 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of the hands, and from 5.4 secs, to 7.2 secs, 
on the face. These figures were thus markedly 
smaller than in the synsesthesic subject and 
probably represented the normal persistence of 
an after-sensation on stimulating the pain 
points. Furthermore in the normal individual 
there was no fluctuation of the sensation, but it 
gradually decreased in intensity. 

In the subject, too, it was possible to actually 
produce an artificial pain synsesthesia, with 
varying degrees of hair length of the sesthesi- 
ometer, a rather convincing proof that the con¬ 
dition was produced by a physiological irradia¬ 
tion of peripheral pain sensations. The figures 
and results were as follows:— 


Hair length 
(mm.) 

40 

30 

20 

10 

9 

8 

7 

6 

5 

4 

3 

2 


Right side 
(hypoesthetic) 

no color sensation 
(( (( 

U ii 4S 

(( H 46 

44 44 <4 

44 44 44 

44 44 44 

44 44 44 

slight redness 

44 44 

more “ 

44 44 


Left side 
(normal) 
no color sensation 

44 44 44 

44 44 44 

slight redness 

44 44 

more “ 

t( t( 

distinct red sensation 
strong “ “ 

U (( «( 

«( it ft 

it if ft 


It will be noted that the beginning of the red¬ 
ness on the normal side was simultaneous with 
the time of greatest persistence of sensation 




COLORED HEARING 


411 


(10 mm. hair = 84.8 secs, persistence). Further¬ 
more, the synsesthesia, on the normal side, could 
be artificially produced sooner and with a 
greater hair-length than on the hypoesthetic 
side. 

In this case we seem to be dealing with a 
peculiar and unusual type of synsesthesia, in 
that an abnormal (or artificial) stimulation of 
the peripheral pain neurons of the skin stimu¬ 
lated at the same time, possibly through a 
physiological irradiation or a derailment of the 
pain-impulses, a sensation of color, a theory in 
harmony with the one I devised for the ex¬ 
planation of colored hearing. The fact 
that the synsesthesia could be artificially pro¬ 
duced by peripheral stimuli does not mili¬ 
tate against the condition being a central phe¬ 
nomenon. 

In certain writers, for instance in the so- 
called French symbolist poets (Rimbaud par¬ 
ticularly, in his famous sonnet in which he desig¬ 
nates the color of the vowels, Marie, Baudelaire, 
Verlaine), colored hearing seems to have been 
present. The phenomenon was also found in 
Lafcadio Hearn and is described by him with 
his usual psychological insight. “ For me words 
have color, form, character. . . . The read¬ 
ers do not feel as you do about words. They 
can’t be supposed to know that you think the 


412 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

letter A is blush-crimson, and the letter E 
pale-sky-blue.” ^ 

Sometimes artists will also show a rudimen¬ 
tary unconscious linking of sound with color, 
probably due to the nature of their work. I had 
the opportunity to observe the condition in one 
artist, in whom the synsesthesia developed only 
after he had begun to study painting in his 
early youth. In this subject, harsh and loud 
music produced instantaneously a sensation of 
red and yellow while soft music caused a violet 
and blue sensation. A clash of cymbals pro¬ 
duced a red-yellow sensation, a harp, a blue- 
violet sensation. The colors were intense and 
persisting during the entire duration of the 
music. The colors were designated as pure, 
“ as if they came out of a tube.” In the red- 
yellow synsesthesia, sometimes the red would 
predominate, sometimes the yellow. The violet- 
green synsesthesia resembled the color of waves 
on the water. As in my other cases, there 
was no reversibility of the synsesthesia, namely, 
none of the colors were able to produce musical 
sensations. 

^“The Japanese Letters of Lafcadio Hearn.”—Edited by 
Elizabeth Bisland, 1910. 


CHAPTER X 


THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 

Modern medicine concerns itself more with 
the prevention of disease than its cure. What 
then has abnormal psychology to teach us con¬ 
cerning the prevention of the psycho-neuroses, 
a group of diseases which more than any other 
incapacitates the individual and produces far- 
reaching effects upon our social organization? 
It seemed wise, before bringing this book to a 
close, to add a few words on the prevention of 
the psycho-neuroses, as far as this lies within our 
power. To begin with, in the normal individ¬ 
ual, that is, the one who is free from a nervous 
taint, but who is liable to social frictions, curi¬ 
osities of character and oddities, a psycho¬ 
analysis of his innermost tendencies would be 
of great benefit in giving him the clue for a 
better control of them and thus a better ad¬ 
justment to surroundings and to the capabilities 
of life and action. In a way such an analysis 
might prevent any delusional interpretation of 
conflicts with the environment, so characteristic 

413 


414 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

of the paranoiac mental make-up and thus give 
the clue to an intelligent and well-adapted 
adjustment. 

It is in the child, however, that our efforts 
will be most productive, for, as was repeatedly 
shown in these pages, many of the adult psycho¬ 
neuroses have their origin in the unconscious 
mental conflicts and repressions, usually of a 
sexual character, in early childhood. In fact 
so early may they appear, that the amnesia or 
forgetting of the events later in life tends to 
make one incriminate a more or less hypotheti¬ 
cal hereditary disposition, rather than one’s own 
unconscious and repressed thoughts. In chil¬ 
dren precocious sexual excitement should be 
avoided and children should not be exposed to 
an over-caressing, excessive parental affection. 
Otherwise this persistence of infantile fixation 
in the son or daughter might lead to various 
pathological reactions in adult life. (CE dipus- 
complex.) The only or “favorite” child is 
particularly liable to be spoiled by the develop¬ 
ment of these complexes. The baneful results 
of these unconscious complexes are well known, 
leading on the one hand to homo-sexuality with 
its misery and unhappiness and on the other to 
sexual ansesthesia, which latter is the basis of 
so many divorces on the ground of “ conjugal 
incompatibility.” 


THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 415 

The uninitiated mother or father will tend to 
deny this important fact and interpret it as only 
a scientific fancy in the mind of the writer. But 
modern psycho-pathological investigations have 
shown that these unconscious conflicts lead a 
dynamic existence, conflicts repressed and hid¬ 
den even from the parents and only brought out 
through psycho-analytic investigation. 

Thus the prevention of the psycho-neuroses is 
to be found in the individual rather than in the 
minimizing of the injurious influences of the 
rush and progress of modern civilization. An 
individual breaks down, not so much from 
fatigue or overwork or from “ brain fag ” 
(whatever that may mean), but from his own 
mental conflicts, from sexual self-reproaches 
dating from childhood and from the injurious 
repression of the sexual instinct. 

There are several ways of directing the sexual 
feelings and converting or transferring them to 
other emotional spheres. The best method of 
controlling suppressed sexual emotions is to 
change or attach these to higher artistic or intel¬ 
lectual interests and not allow free sexual 
expression or the running rampant in sexual 
vice.^ This process, called sublimation, is a de¬ 
flection of the sexual aim and the utilizing of 

^ See my paper “ Psycho-Analysis and the Sexual Hygiene of 
Children.”—T/je Child, January, 1912. 


416 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

sexual energy for other purposes of cultural 
demands. The help derived from psycho¬ 
analysis is partly through this sublimating 
process. 

Culture and social conventionalities are built 
upon a repression of instincts, a strangling of 
emotions, and the revenge of the nervous 
system upon this repression is the breaking out 
of a psycho-neurosis. Our inconsistencies in 
this regard are startling: one must not, for 
instance, act in a voluptuous manner in public, 
unless it be in some form of a social dance, and 
even our language is full of this repression and 
veiled sexual symbolism. Hysterical outbreaks 
of violence, such as characterize the so-called 
militant suffragettes in England, are probably 
the result of a repression to which certain 
classes of women think they have been subjected 
by the opposite sex, and so here again, as in 
the hysteria of an individual, the sexual conflict 
is the dynamic force at work. In a significant 
phrase of Adler’s,^ it is a reaction against the 
“ masculine protest ”—that is, an insistence on 
independence, a feeling that to give up would 
mean surrender and thus an over-compensation 
arises in the form of aggression. Freud well 
says, “ Before everything else, however, there 
must be opened in the general thought a chance 

‘Alfred Adler: “ Ueber den Nervosen Charakter.”—1912. 



THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 417 

for the discussion of the sexual problem; one 
must be able to speak of these things without 
being pronounced a disturber of the peace or 
a delver in the vulgar instinct, and there re¬ 
mains enough work here for a century in which 
our civilization must learn to live according to 
the demands of our sexuality.” If we are to 
have a natural, healthy sexual education, it 
must be, not like what is now sweeping like a 
sexual epidemic all over the world, and teaching 
the child and the adult what they must not 
do, but rather what they must do, an avoidance 
of sexual errors and a transforming or sublima¬ 
tion of the various emotional repressions into 
intellectual work and athletic activity. This 
sexual enlightenment in the child, if properly 
done, can do much to prevent the mental con¬ 
flicts and the erotic fantasies which are so 
productive of harm in later years. Thus the 
prevention of nervous diseases is our individual 
problem, no amount of propaganda or teaching 
can do any good, unless the individual oversight 
of the child is given its proper attention. By 
avoiding repression, mental conflicts, and emo¬ 
tional shocks we can in a large measure circum¬ 
vent, if not entirely prevent, the psycho¬ 
neuroses. Children should be impressed with 
the fact that sexuality is clean and the 
affairs of sexual life should not be made a se- 


418 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

cret any more than their food or their religious 
beliefs. 

For this unwarrantable attitude blame must 
be placed upon the unconscious elements of so¬ 
ciety. As the social unconscious which is really 
a repository for childhood ideas and primitive 
beliefs is able to produce myths and folk-lore, 
in many instances these being merely disguises 
and symbolizations for repressed sexual emo¬ 
tions, so the unconscious of the modern social 
organization is constantly suppressing sexual 
truths in the struggle against facts of sex. 
Thus arise prudery and frigidity, the shutting 
of the eyes of society and the individual against 
the naked facts, so valuable for the welfare of 
the race. It is this unwarranted suppression 
for which society pays the price, in the form 
of the various psycho-neuroses. 

Thus repression may lead to conversion into 
bodily symptoms as in hysteria, or when a com¬ 
pensating thought is substituted for the repres¬ 
sion, to psychasthenia and the compulsion neu¬ 
roses. The outward projection of a repressed 
but forbidden wish may manifest itself in dis¬ 
eases such as paranoia or in certain abnormal 
beliefs, as in the mediaeval conceptions of the 
devil. In fact, in times less enlightened than 
ours, the yielding to a forbidden sexual wish 
was often attributed to demoniac possession or 


THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 419 

to the influence of witches. When the uncon¬ 
scious breaks through into consciousness, and 
the unconscious wish thus comes into conflict 
with reality, a psycho-neurosis develops. Thus 
psycho-analytic interpretations are of value, in 
not only enabling us to understand the mechan¬ 
ism of certain nervous diseases, but the mechan¬ 
ism of society as well. 

In bringing this book to a conclusion, a 
brief recapitulation and survey may not be 
without service. The ground covered is a wide 
one, while the experimental and clinical re¬ 
searches on abnormal psychology, with its 
practical application to medicine, are becoming 
more extensive and assuming an increasing 
importance for thinking men and women. Yet 
the field is new and the principles, although 
fundamental, are only partially defined. Much 
remains to be done, particularly on the nature 
of consciousness and the unconscious in its nor¬ 
mal and abnormal states and of the mysterious 
relations existing between the mind and the 
body. This latter problem in particular is now 
the subject of exact experimental research, 
whereas formerly it entered only into the field 
of philosophical dialectic. The present status 
of abnormal psychology may be summed up in 
the pertinent language of Professor James. 


420 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 

In speaking of the present situation in philos¬ 
ophy, referring particularly to Bergson, Pro¬ 
fessor James says: “What really exists is not 
things made, but things in the making. Once 
made they are dead.” 

The earlier portion of the book, dealing with 
the various theories of the subconscious, is es¬ 
pecially open to new light. The theories given 
and most favored are those which exact experi¬ 
ment has shown to be of most value to psycho¬ 
pathology and psychotherapeutics. For obvious 
reasons, I have not included any philosophical 
conception of the subconscious such as that of 
Von Hartmann. My principal object has been 
threefold, first, to strip the subconscious of 
any supernormal ability or power—second, to 
limit it to the various mental functions estab¬ 
lished by brain physiology, thus making it syn¬ 
onymous with mental dissociation and with 
complex mental processes of which we are un¬ 
aware—and third, to show how certain func¬ 
tional nervous disorders may be produced by 
perversions of unconscious mental processes. 
For this purpose, certain methods of exploring 
the subconscious mental life, according to the 
principles of experimental physiology and psy¬ 
chology, have been discussed rather fully, thus 
clearing the way for a correct view of the place 
occupied by automatism and the effect of re- 



THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 421 


pressed emotions in the domain of 'psycho¬ 
pathology. The broad field of Freud’s theories , 
of the unconscious, with their bearing upon 
dreams, the neuroses and psycho-analysis, upon 
society, literature, and folk-lore, is of incalcula¬ 
ble value. Its investigations have already done 
much to prevent, as well as to cure, certain 
diseases, and the future of psycho-analysis thus 
becomes of paramount importance for the race 
as well as for the individual. Psycho-analysis 
thus becomes synthetic as well as analytical, it 
can reassociate the destructive forces at work 
in the unconscious of the individual and point 
the way for a natural outlet of his energies 
and inherent creative ability in the form of 
what is termed sublimation.” 

The establishment of the fact that certain 
functional nervous disturbances, technically 
known as the psycho-neuroses, are caused by 
subconscious or dissociated activities, may per¬ 
haps be called one of the triumphs of modern 
research in abnormal psychology. The part 
played by these dissociated mental processes in 
the origin of certain functional disorders, is per¬ 
haps more extensive than many physicians are 
at present disposed to concede, but clinical 
evidence is fast accumulating to show that 
these disturbances can only be understood if 
this interpretation is placed upon them, thus 


422 DISEASES OF THE SUBCONSCIOUS 


clearing ’ the way for an intelligent psycho¬ 
therapeutic treatment. We must remember 
that from the moment an action falls from the 
domain of the purposive into that of the habit¬ 
ual, it ceases to be under the direct control of 
consciousness and becomes allied to certain 
automatisms, either unconscious or subcon¬ 
scious. What is true of purposive actions also 
holds true as regards conscious thought. It is 
this mechanism which enters into the causation 
of certain psycho-neuroses. It is not improb¬ 
able that states of mind may originate certain 
functional disorders, as in a reverse manner 
physical maladies may give rise to morbid states 
of mind. We refer particularly to the effect 
of the emotions upon the gastro-intestinal tract, 
as established by recent exact physiological 
research. 

The subject of abnormal psychology is one 
that has but recently been critically examined, 
and therefore the vast territory covered by 
this important branch of medical science has 
been only partially explored. The object of 
these pages has been to discuss only so much 
as has been already ascertained from exact 
experiment and clinical research. It is impos¬ 
sible to state at present how far these re¬ 
searches may extend, but sufficient is already 
known to enable us to formulate certain funda- 


THE PREVENTION OF THE NEUROSES 423 

mental principles, which are of great value in 
certain psychotherapeutic procedures. The 
literature on the subject is already vast, and 
for the general reader I have attempted to 
give a summary of only the most important 
researches. In presenting these facts and in¬ 
dicating their bearing upon psychotherapeutic 
methods, I feel that my task for the present 
is as complete as I can make it, and as such 
I am content to leave it to the patient study 
of the impartial reader. 


THE END 



INDEX 


Abraham, K., 20, 175-181. 
Absent-mindedness, 22-26. 
Adler, A., 223, 416. 

Amnesia, 22-23, 30-31. 
Continuous, 248. 

Hysterical, 336. 

Lowell Case of, 250-254. 
Retrograde, 247. 

Synthesis of, 254-271. 

Various types of, 246-249. 
Anxiety Crises, 358-360. 
Anxiety Neuroses, 380-382. 
Aphasia, 5. 

Apraxia, 5. 

Association centres in the brain, 
83-85. 

Neuroses, 357-358. 
Physiological basis of, 8 , 85- 
86 . 

Association tests, 86 - 102 . 
in dementia praecox, 96-97. 
in juvenile delinquency, 101 - 
102 . 

in manic-depressive insanity, 
98-99. 

Auto-erotism, 186. 

Automatic laughter, 80. 
Automatic writing, 13-14, 39-53. 
as a dissociation, 13-14, 45- 
47. 

as a wish fulfillment, 53. 

Babinski, J., 317. 

Bain, A., 76. 

Bechterew, W., 194. 

Bergson, H., 5. 

Bernheim, H., 194- 
Bleuler, E., 91. 

Braid, J., 194. 

Brain and Memory, 5. 


Breuer, J., 34 . 

Brill, A. A., 21, 329. 

Briquet, 300. 

Calkins, Mary Whiton, 140. 
Cannon, W. B-, 61-62. 

Chandler, A. R., 20. 

Charcot, J. M., 194, 300. 
Childhood sexuality, 185-187. 
Claparede, E., 76, 109, 192, 197. 
Co-conscious, 15-16. 

Complex defined, 8 , 36-37. 
Complex indicators, 89. 
Compulsion neuroses, 340-341. 
Consciousness, 6-7. 

Automatic theory of, 7. 
Parallelistic theory of, 7. 
Coriat, I. H., 20, 38, 101 , 113, 
132, 149, 181, 249, 275-276, 
336, 397, 406, 415. 

Crystal visions, 47-51. 
Cyclothemia, 365. 

Dementia praecox, 92-97. 
Dessoir, Max, 15. 

Dissociation, 8 , 26. 

Dreams, 138-188. 

in abnormal mental states, 
141-142. 

in amnesia, 149-152. 
of the blind, 159-160. 
in delirium, 157-159. 
in multiple personality, 142- 
153. 

as manifestations of active 
consciousness, 146-147. 
Artificial, 147. 

Theories of, 139-142. 
Recurrent, 153-154. 
Instigators of, 143-146, 156. 


425 


426 


INDEX 


Dreams; 

Physical effects of, 154-155. 
Freud’s theory of, 161-185. 
Manifest and latent content, 
163. 

Dream mechanisms, 154-168. 
Dreams as wish fulfillments, 
168-173. 

Dream censorship, 174. 
Typical dreams, 174-185. 
Dreams and Myths, 20, 175- 
181. 

CEdipus-complex dreams, 179- 
184. 

Hypermnesic dreams, 184-185. 
Nakedness dreams, 185. 
Dreams and Sexuality, 185- 
187. 

Number dreams, 31-32. 

Ellis, Havelock, 186. 

Emotions, 54-102. 
in animals, 56-57. 

Central theory of, 59-63. 
Dissociating effect of, 73-76. 
Electrical reactions in, 68-70. 
Evolution of, 54-55. 
Gastro-intestinal accompani¬ 
ments of, 60-63. 

Pathology of, 71-79. 
Peripheral theory of, 58-60. 
Physiology of, 57-58. 

Pulse reactions in, 65-68. 
in religion, 71. 

Synthetic effect of, 76-78. 
Everyday life, psychology of, 
26-27. 

Fatigue, 367-371. 

Fear Neuroses, 73, 346-347, 

353-357. 

F6r6, Ch., 72. 

Ferenczi, 197. 

Flight of ideas, 97-99. 
Flournoy, 13-14, 44, 47,281,395. 
Forgetting of names, 22-23. 
Forel, A., 191. 

Freud, S., 17-21, 26-27, 34, 92, 
141, 161-188, 218-222, 322- 
329. 


Gilbert, J. A., 125. 

Goltz, F., 58. 

Gowers, W. R., 388. 

Hamlet and (Edipus Complex, 

20 . 

Hartenberg, P., 379. 

Hearn, L., 274, 412. 

Hering, E., 243. 

Heubel, E., 108. 

Hypnagogic State, 130-135. 
Hypnagogic Hallucinations, 
126. 

Hypnosis, 189-210. 
as absent-mindedness, 203- 
208. 

in animals, 114, 190-192. 
as an artificial hypnagogic 
state, 201-203. 

Circulatory theory of, 195- 
196. 

Chemical theory of, 196. 
Claparede’s theory of, 197. 
Histological theory of, 195. 
Hypnosis and Psycho¬ 
analysis, 197. 

Psychology of, 197. 
as a modification of sleep, 
194. 

Therapeutic value of, 208- 

210 . 

Evolution of, 193-199. 
Hyslop, J. H., 44, 281. 
Hysteria, Amnesia in, 336. 
Anaesthesia in, 305-307. 
Convulsions in, 310. 

Juvenile types of, 301-302, 
331-332. ‘ 

in Lady Macbeth, 20. 
in primitive races and chil¬ 
dren, 331-332. 

Mental symptoms of, 311. 
Paralysis in, 303-304. 
Psycho-analysis of, 218-238. 
Visual field in, 307-309- 
Hysteria, theories of: 

Earlier theories, 300-301. 
Babinski’s theory, 315-317, 
Freud’s theory, 322-330. 
Janet’s theory, 312-315. 


INDEX 


427 


Hysteria, theories of: 

Prince’s theory, 317-321. 
Sollier’s theory, 317. 

Insomnia, 126-129. 

James, William, 59. 

Janet, Pierre, 16, 33-34, 128, 
248, 282, 295, 308, 312, 331, 
339. 

Jastrow, J., 160. 

Jones, Ernest, 20, 134. 

Jung, C. S., 65, 92, 223-226. 
Juvenile Delinquency, 101-102. 

Lady Macbeth, Hysteria of, 20. 
Lange, S., 58. 

Laughter, Bergson’s theory of, 
79. 

Manaceine, Marie de, 125, 145. 
Marinesco, G., 392. 

Maury, 144. 

Memory, Biological theory of, 
241-244. 

Illusions of, 272-279. 
Psychology of, 245-249. 
Restoration of lost periods 
in, 244-257, 259-271. 

Mental Manias, 350-352. 
Mesmer, 193. 

Mobius, P. J., 300. 

Mosso, A., 105, 367. 

Multiple Personality, Case of, 
280-296. 

Complex types, 281. 
as hypnotic phenomena, 280- 
281. 

as a hysterical state, 320-321. 
Miinsterberg, H., 13. 

Myers, F. W- H., 11. 

Neurasthenia, Causes of, 373. 
as a dissociation, 374-375. 
Not a fatigue neurosis, 369- 
371. 

as a stigma of hysteria, 372. 
Symptoms of, 378-381. 
Treatment of, 382-383. 
Neuroses, Prevention of, 413- 
419. 


Nightmare, 134. 

Nocturnal Paralysis, 132-133. 

Obsessions, 346-350. 

Paramnesia, 22, 272-279. 
in Alcoholic Insanity, 276- 
279. 

as a temporary dissociation, 
274-276. 

Patrick, G. T- W., 125. 
Pawlow, J. P., 60-61. 

Peterson, F., 237. 

Prince, Morton, 11, 15-16, 26, 
35, 153, 206, 237, 318. 
Psychasthenia, 339-363. 
as a dissociation, 344. 
Symptoms of, 339-340. 
Treatment of, 363. 
Psycho-Analysis: 

Adler’s views, 223. 

Freud’s views, 213-225. 
General principles and meth¬ 
ods of, 211-218. 
of Hamlet, 20. 
in Hysteria, 228-238. 

Jung’s views, 223-226. 
of Lady Macbeth, 20. 
Psycho-cardiac reflex, 65-68. 
Psycho-epileptic attacks, 384- 
391. 

Psycho-galvanic reaction, 68-70. 
Psychotherapy, 37, 38. 

Putnam, J. J., 218-221. 

Reserve Energy, 76. 

Retinal After-images, 6. 
Salmon, 106. 

Sante de Sanctis, 140. 

Sergi, G., 58. 

Sexuality in Childhood, 185- 
187. 

Sherrington, C. S., 59-60, 369. 
Sidis, Boris, 111, 151. 

Sleep, Biological theories of, 
109-117. 

Chemical theories of, 107-108, 
Coriat’s theory of, 113-117. 
Depth of, 129. 

Effects of loss of, 124-126. 


428 


INDEX 


Sleep: 

Evolution of, 117-121. 
Histological theories of, 106- 
107. 

Necessity for, 122-124. 
Physiological Theories of, 
108-109. 

Slips of pen, 28. 

SoLlier, P., 317. 

Somnambulism, 137. 

Sophocles and Freudian Meth¬ 
od, 20. 

Stammering, 381-382. 

Strong, C. A., 7. 

Strumpell, A., 108. 
Subconscious, as an active 
thinking Process, 13-14. 
Defined, 3-9, 38. 
in disease, 32-38. 
in everyday life, 22-32. 
as an inactive mental state, 
12 . 

as a marginal state, 11. 
Modern theories of, 9-21. 
as a physiological process, 12. 
as split -0 If ideas, 11. 
as subliminal self, 11-12. 
Dessoir’s theory of, 15. 
Freud’s theory of, 17-21. 


Subconscious: 

Janet’s theory of, 16. 
Prince’s theory of, 15-16. 
Sublimation, 415. 

Synaesthesia, definition of, 392. 
Flournoy’s classification, 395. 
Theories of, 396-397. 

Case reports, 397-411. 
Coriat’s theory of, 404-406. 
in artists, 412. 
in literature, 411-412. 

TarchanofF, 106. 

Tics, 352-353. 

Tissie, Ph., 141. 

Traumatic Neuroses, 73. 
Tromner, 110. 

Tropisms, 118. 

Tyndall, 5. 

Unconscious, Freud’s theory of, 
17-21. 

Unreality, feeling of, 359-363. 

Verrall, Mrs. A. W., 39. 
Verworn, Max, 190-191. 

Void, J. M., 141. 

Wit, Freud’s theory of, 79. 




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z ^ ‘v "= 2'. 





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